lavéevslavezWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lavée is a adjective, lavez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lavée” is an adjective and “lavez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,469
“lavée” frequency rank
#31,117
“lavez” frequency rank
67586
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lavée lavez
Definition Féminin singulier de lavé. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de laver.

Same sound, different letters: lavée vs lavez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. lavée (CVCVV) and lavez (CVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
lavée
5 ch
lavez

Ear matches; page differs - lavée and lavez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: lavée and lavez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \la.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67586, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lavée is recorded at frequency rank #36,469, classified as anadj, pronounced \la.ve\. lavez is at rank #31,117, tagged as averb, pronounced \la.ve\.

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 67586, this pair ranks #62,781 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lavée vs lavez

Shared letters: aelv. Private to "lavée": é. Private to "lavez": z.

"lavée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "lavez" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lavez ← alvez · laevz · lavezz · lavvez · lavze · llavez · lvaez

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lavée" and "lavez" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lavée" is an adjective and "lavez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "lavée" or "lavez" show up more?
"lavez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,117 in our French list, against #36,469 for "lavée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lavée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lavez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,781 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lavée" and "lavez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lacey vs lavée". 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 #62,781 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