Which to use
“lavage” and “levage” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,243
- “lavage” frequency rank
- #39,376
- “levage” frequency rank
- 50619
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lavage | levage |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de laver. | Action de lever ou résultat de cette action. |
Where the eye mixes lavage and levage
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. lavage and levage follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: lavage vs levage
A purely visual mix-up. lavage (\la.vaʒ\) and levage (\lə.vaʒ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “lavage” becomes e in “levage”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50619, 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\. levage is at rank #39,376, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lə.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 50619, this pair ranks #161,214 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lavage vs levage
Shared letters: aeglv. Private to "lavage": -. Private to "levage": -.
"lavage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "levage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "lavage" and "levage" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "lavage" or "levage" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "lavage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "levage" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #161,214 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lavage" and "levage" 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 #161,214 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.