lago vs lay, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“lago” is an adverb and “lay” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,759
“lago” frequency rank: #27,500
“lay” frequency rank: 77259
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	lago	lay
Definition	Là.	Variante de lé.

Letter map: lago vs lay

Shared letters muted; letters that set lago and lay apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

lago

3 ch

lay

Grammar separator: lago vs lay

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lago is anadverb and layanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77259, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lago is recorded at frequency rank #49,759, classified as anadv, pronounced \la.ɡo\. lay is at rank #27,500, tagged as anadj.

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 77259, this pair ranks #28,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lago vs lay

Shared letters: al. Private to "lago": go. Private to "lay": y.

"lago" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

lago ← algo · laggo · laog · lgao · llago

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lago" and "lay" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lago" is an adverb and "lay" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "lago" or "lay"?

"lay" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,500 in our French list, against #49,759 for "lago". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "lago" vs "lay" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "lago" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lay" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #28,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"lago" and "lay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lago vs longo". 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 #28,910 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.