larvslierWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lar is a adverb, lier is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lar” is an adverb and “lier” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,637
“lar” frequency rank
#10,528
“lier” frequency rank
59165
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lar lier
Definition Trop. Serrer avec une corde ou avec toute autre chose flexible.

Letter map: lar vs lier

Shared letters muted; letters that set lar and lier apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. lar runs 3 letters (CVC) against lier's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
lar
4 ch
lier

Role in the sentence - lar and lier

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lar is anadverb and lieraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59165, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lar is recorded at frequency rank #48,637, classified as anadv. lier is at rank #10,528, tagged as averb, pronounced \li.je\.

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 59165, this pair ranks #104,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lar vs lier

Shared letters: lr. Private to "lar": a. Private to "lier": ei.

"lar" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "lier" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lier ← iler · leir · lierr · llier

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lar" and "lier" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lar" is an adverb and "lier" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "lar" or "lier"?
"lier" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,528 in our French list, against #48,637 for "lar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "lar" and "lier". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lier" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #104,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lar" and "lier" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lar 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 #104,677 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list