lavesvsleveTell them apart

Which to use

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

#26,781
“laves” frequency rank
#39,877
“leve” frequency rank
66658
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laves leve
Definition Pluriel de lave. Pension.

Where the eye mixes laves and leve

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

5 ch
laves
4 ch
leve

Visual trap between laves and leve

A purely visual mix-up. laves (\lav\) and leve (\ˈleː.ve\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66658, 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\. 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 66658, this pair ranks #66,874 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of laves vs leve

Shared letters: elv. Private to "laves": as. Private to "leve": -.

"laves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "leve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • laves ← laevs · lavess · lavse · lavves · llaves · lvaes
  • leve ← elve · leev · levve · lleve · lvee

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "laves" and "leve" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\lav\ versus \ˈleː.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "laves" or "leve"?
"laves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,781 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "laves" 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 #66,874 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laves" 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 #66,874 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