Which to use
“lance” and “lancées” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,441
- “lance” frequency rank
- #13,829
- “lancées” frequency rank
- 15270
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lance | lancées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Arme à long bois, terminée par un fer pointu et qui, au Moyen Âge, était fort grosse vers la poignée. | Pluriel de lancée. |
Where the eye mixes lance and lancées
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses lance with lancées
A purely visual mix-up. lance (\lɑ̃s\) and lancées (\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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15270, 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\. lancées is at rank #13,829, 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 15270, this pair ranks #393,090 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of lance vs lancées
Shared letters: aceln. Private to "lance": -. Private to "lancées": sé.
"lance" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "lancées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- lance ← alnce · lacne · lancce · lanec · lannce · llance · lnace
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "lance" for "lancées" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "lance" or "lancées" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "lance" and "lancées" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "lance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lancées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #393,090 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lance" and "lancées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lancées 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 #393,090 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.