Which to use
“lance” and “lancée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,441
- “lance” frequency rank
- #4,869
- “lancée” frequency rank
- 6310
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lance | lancée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Arme à long bois, terminée par un fer pointu et qui, au Moyen Âge, était fort grosse vers la poignée. | Employé par quelques médecins comme synonyme d'élancement |
Where the eye mixes lance and lancée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: lance vs lancée
A purely visual mix-up. lance (\lɑ̃s\) and lancée (\lɑ̃.se\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6310, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lance is recorded at frequency rank #1,441, classified as anoun, pronounced \lɑ̃s\. lancée is at rank #4,869, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lɑ̃.se\.
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 6310, this pair ranks #426,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of lance vs lancée
Shared letters: aceln. Private to "lance": -. Private to "lancée": é.
"lance" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "lancée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- lance ← alnce · lacne · lancce · lanec · lannce · llance · lnace
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "lance" and "lancée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "lance" vs "lancée" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "lance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lancée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #426,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lance" and "lancée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lancée vs lancet". 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 #426,586 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.