lagvslagonConfusable pair

Which to use

“lag” and “lagon” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#36,026
“lag” frequency rank
#29,840
“lagon” frequency rank
65866
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lag lagon
Definition Latence, retard, décalage, lenteur de communication informatique. Étendue d’eau à l’intérieur d’un atoll.

Where the eye mixes lag and lagon

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. lag runs 3 letters (CVC) against lagon's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
lag
5 ch
lagon

Why the eye confuses lag with lagon

A purely visual mix-up. lag (\laɡ\) and lagon (\la.ɡɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “lag” sits inside “lagon”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65866, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lag is recorded at frequency rank #36,026, classified as anoun, pronounced \laɡ\. lagon is at rank #29,840, tagged as anoun, pronounced \la.ɡɔ̃\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 65866, this pair ranks #70,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lag vs lagon

Shared letters: agl. Private to "lag": -. Private to "lagon": no.

"lag" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "lagon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lagon ← algon · laggon · lagno · lagonn · laogn · lgaon · llagon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lag" for "lagon" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\laɡ\ versus \la.ɡɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lag" or "lagon"?
"lagon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,840 in our French list, against #36,026 for "lag". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lag" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lagon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lag" and "lagon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lag vs lep". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #70,426 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list