Which to use
“laves” and “lavis” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #26,781
- “laves” frequency rank
- #41,866
- “lavis” frequency rank
- 68647
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | laves | lavis |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de lave. | Technique de dessin utilisant une seule couleur provenant souvent de l’encre de Chine, mais aussi le bistre, la sépia ou quelque autre substance colorante qui sont utilisées à des degrés de dilution divers. |
Where the eye mixes laves and lavis
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. laves and lavis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between laves and lavis
A purely visual mix-up. laves (\lav\) and lavis (\la.vi\) 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 - e in “laves” becomes i in “lavis”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68647, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
laves is recorded at frequency rank #26,781, classified as anoun, pronounced \lav\. lavis is at rank #41,866, tagged as anoun, pronounced \la.vi\.
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 68647, this pair ranks #58,292 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of laves vs lavis
Shared letters: alsv. Private to "laves": e. Private to "lavis": i.
"laves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "lavis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "laves" and "lavis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "laves" vs "lavis" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "laves" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lavis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #58,292 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "laves" and "lavis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lavait vs lavis". 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 #58,292 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.