Which to use
“lane” is a noun and “le” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,498
- “lane” frequency rank
- #3
- “le” frequency rank
- 14501
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lane | le |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Étendue d'eau où l'on pêche des aloses et des saumons. | Ce… dont on parle maintenant. Déterminant marquant un nom masculin singulier, référant à une seule entité possible dans un contexte. |
Where the eye mixes lane and le
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses lane with le
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lane is \lan\ while le is \lə\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs article), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14501, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lane is recorded at frequency rank #14,498, classified as anoun, pronounced \lan\. le is at rank #3, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \lə\.
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 14501, this pair ranks #396,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of lane vs le
Shared letters: el. Private to "lane": an. Private to "le": -.
"lane" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "le" · 2 letters · shape CV
Known mistypes of this pair
- lane ← alne · laen · lanne · llane · lnae
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "lane" for "le" ever safe?
Frequency check: "lane" vs "le" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "lane" and "le" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "lane" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "le" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #396,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lane" and "le" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lago vs lane". 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 #396,383 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.