Which to use
“lake” is a noun and “lay” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,242
- “lake” frequency rank
- #27,500
- “lay” frequency rank
- 38742
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lake | lay |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lac. | Variante de lé. |
Letter map: lake vs lay
Shared letters muted; letters that set lake and lay apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for lake / lay
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lake is anoun and layanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38742, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lake is recorded at frequency rank #11,242, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈleɪk\. 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 38742, this pair ranks #253,133 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lake vs lay
Shared letters: al. Private to "lake": ek. Private to "lay": y.
"lake" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- lake ← alke · laek · lakke · lkae · llake
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "lake" for "lay" ever safe?
Frequency check: "lake" vs "lay" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pair "lake" vs "lay" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "lake" 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 #253,133 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lake" and "lay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lay 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 #253,133 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.