lavagevslavagesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“lavage” and “lavages” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,243
“lavage” frequency rank
#49,189
“lavages” frequency rank
60432
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lavage lavages
Definition Action de laver. Pluriel de lavage.

Same sound, different letters: lavage vs lavages

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. lavage runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against lavages's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
lavage
7 ch
lavages

Ear matches; page differs - lavage and lavages

This is the hard kind. lavage and lavages are pronounced identically (\la.vaʒ\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “lavage” sits inside “lavages”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60432, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lavage is recorded at frequency rank #11,243, classified as anoun, pronounced \la.vaʒ\. lavages is at rank #49,189, tagged as anoun, pronounced \la.vaʒ\.

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 60432, this pair ranks #97,623 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lavage vs lavages

Shared letters: aeglv. Private to "lavage": -. Private to "lavages": s.

"lavage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "lavages" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lavage ← alvage · laavge · lavaeg · lavagge · lavgae · lavvage · llavage · lvaage
  • lavages ← alvages · laavges · lavaegs · lavagess · lavagges · lavagse · lavgaes · lavvages

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lavage" and "lavages" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\la.vaʒ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "lavage" or "lavages" show up more?
"lavage" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,243 in our French list, against #49,189 for "lavages". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"lavage" and "lavages" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lavage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lavages" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #97,623 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lavage" and "lavages" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lavages vs levage". 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 #97,623 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