Which to use
“lance” and “late” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,441
- “lance” frequency rank
- #28,229
- “late” frequency rank
- 29670
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lance | late |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Arme à long bois, terminée par un fer pointu et qui, au Moyen Âge, était fort grosse vers la poignée. | Latte. |
Where the eye mixes lance and late
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between lance and late
A purely visual mix-up. lance (\lɑ̃s\) and late (\lat\) 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 29670, 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\. late is at rank #28,229, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lat\.
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 29670, this pair ranks #315,224 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lance vs late
Shared letters: ael. Private to "lance": cn. Private to "late": t.
"lance" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "lance" and "late" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "lance" or "late" show up more?
What to do next
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 "late" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #315,224 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lance" and "late" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lago vs late". 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 #315,224 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.