lauvsluiWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lau is a adjective, lui is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lau” is an adjective and “lui” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,267
“lau” frequency rank
#68
“lui” frequency rank
24335
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lau lui
Definition Tiède. Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du singulier épicène du complément d’objet indirect.

Letter map: lau vs lui

Shared letters muted; letters that set lau and lui apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
lau
3 ch
lui

Part-of-speech tell for lau / lui

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lau is anadjective and luiapronoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24335, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lau is recorded at frequency rank #24,267, classified as anadj. lui is at rank #68, tagged as apron, pronounced \lɥi\.

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 24335, this pair ranks #347,197 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lau vs lui

Shared letters: lu. Private to "lau": a. Private to "lui": i.

"lau" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "lui" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lau" for "lui" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lau" is an adjective and "lui" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lau" vs "lui" - which ranks higher?
"lui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #68 in our French list, against #24,267 for "lau". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lau" and "lui".

  • Full dictionary entry for "lau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #347,197 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lau" and "lui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lau vs lep". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #347,197 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