lavéevsleveWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#36,469
“lavée” frequency rank
#39,877
“leve” frequency rank
76346
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lavée leve
Definition Féminin singulier de lavé. Pension.

Where the eye mixes lavée and leve

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. lavée runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against leve's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
lavée
4 ch
leve

Visual trap between lavée and leve

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lavée is \la.ve\ while leve is \ˈleː.ve\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76346, 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\. leve is at rank #39,877, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈleː.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 76346, this pair ranks #31,403 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lavée vs leve

Shared letters: elv. Private to "lavée": aé. Private to "leve": -.

"lavée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "leve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leve ← elve · leev · levve · lleve · lvee

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lavée" and "leve" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lavée" is an adjective and "leve" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lavée" vs "leve" - which ranks higher?
"lavée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,469 in our French list, against #39,877 for "leve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lavée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #31,403 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lavée" and "leve" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lep vs leve". 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 #31,403 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