larvslyreTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#48,637
“lar” frequency rank
#30,253
“lyre” frequency rank
78890
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lar lyre
Definition Trop. Cordophone portable à cordes pincées parallèles au chevalet, dont la caisse de résonance ne se prolonge pas par un manche, qui était en usage chez les anciens.

Letter map: lar vs lyre

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

3 ch
lar
4 ch
lyre

Grammar separator: lar vs lyre

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lar is anadverb and lyreanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78890, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lar is recorded at frequency rank #48,637, classified as anadv. lyre is at rank #30,253, tagged as anoun, pronounced \liʁ\.

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 78890, this pair ranks #24,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lar vs lyre

Shared letters: lr. Private to "lar": a. Private to "lyre": ey.

"lar" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "lyre" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lyre ← llyre · lrye · lyer · lyrre · lyyre · ylre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lar" and "lyre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lar" is an adverb and "lyre" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "lar" or "lyre"?
"lyre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,253 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.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lar" and "lyre".

  • Full dictionary entry for "lar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lyre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #24,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lar" and "lyre" 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 #24,601 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