lagonvslargoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: lagon is a noun, largo is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lagon” is a noun and “largo” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,840
“lagon” frequency rank
#36,925
“largo” frequency rank
66765
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lagon largo
Definition Étendue d’eau à l’intérieur d’un atoll. Très lentement. On le met en tête d’un morceau de musique pour indiquer qu’on doit le jouer très lentement.

Where the eye mixes lagon and largo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. lagon (CVCVC) and largo (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
lagon
5 ch
largo

Look-alike desk: lagon vs largo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lagon is \la.ɡɔ̃\ while largo is \laʁ.ɡo\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66765, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lagon is recorded at frequency rank #29,840, classified as anoun, pronounced \la.ɡɔ̃\. largo is at rank #36,925, tagged as anadv, pronounced \laʁ.ɡo\.

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 66765, this pair ranks #66,344 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lagon vs largo

Shared letters: aglo. Private to "lagon": n. Private to "largo": r.

"lagon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "largo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lagon ← algon · laggon · lagno · lagonn · laogn · lgaon · llagon
  • largo ← alrgo · lagro · larggo · larog · larrgo · llargo · lrago

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lagon" for "largo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lagon" is a noun and "largo" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "lagon" or "largo" show up more?
"lagon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,840 in our French list, against #36,925 for "largo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "lagon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "largo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #66,344 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lagon" and "largo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "largo 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 #66,344 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