Which to use
“laps” is a noun and “lay” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,786
- “laps” frequency rank
- #27,500
- “lay” frequency rank
- 46286
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | laps | lay |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Période de temps. | Variante de lé. |
Letter map: laps vs lay
Shared letters muted; letters that set laps and lay apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for laps / lay
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: laps is anoun and layanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46286, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
laps is recorded at frequency rank #18,786, classified as anoun, pronounced \laps\. lay is at rank #27,500, tagged as anadj.
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 46286, this pair ranks #196,130 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of laps vs lay
Shared letters: al. Private to "laps": ps. Private to "lay": y.
"laps" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- laps ← alps · lapps · lapss · lasp · llaps · lpas
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "laps" and "lay" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "laps" or "lay"?
After this comparison
You've compared "laps" and "lay". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "laps" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lay" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #196,130 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "laps" and "lay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lay vs lep". 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 #196,130 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.