lamasvslavesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#40,346
“lamas” frequency rank
#26,781
“laves” frequency rank
67127
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lamas laves
Definition Pluriel de lama. Pluriel de lave.

Where the eye mixes lamas and laves

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. lamas and laves follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
lamas
5 ch
laves

Visual trap between lamas and laves

A purely visual mix-up. lamas (\la.ma\) and laves (\lav\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67127, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lamas is recorded at frequency rank #40,346, classified as anoun, pronounced \la.ma\. laves is at rank #26,781, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lav\.

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 67127, this pair ranks #64,772 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lamas vs laves

Shared letters: als. Private to "lamas": m. Private to "laves": ev.

"lamas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "laves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lamas ← almas · laams · lamass · lammas · lamsa · llamas · lmaas
  • laves ← laevs · lavess · lavse · lavves · llaves · lvaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lamas" and "laves" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\la.ma\ versus \lav\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lamas" or "laves"?
"laves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,781 in our French list, against #40,346 for "lamas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "lamas" and "laves" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lamas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "laves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,772 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lamas" and "laves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lamas vs limes". 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 #64,772 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