lavesvslinesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,781
“laves” frequency rank
#27,506
“lines” frequency rank
54287
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laves lines
Definition Pluriel de lave. Pluriel de line.

Where the eye mixes laves and lines

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
laves
5 ch
lines

Look-alike desk: laves vs lines

A purely visual mix-up. laves (\lav\) and lines (\laɪnz\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54287, 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\. lines is at rank #27,506, tagged as anoun, pronounced \laɪnz\.

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 54287, this pair ranks #135,044 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of laves vs lines

Shared letters: els. Private to "laves": av. Private to "lines": in.

"laves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "lines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • laveslaevs · lavess · lavse · lavves · llaves · lvaes
  • linesilnes · liness · linnes · linse · llines · lnies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "laves" and "lines" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\lav\ versus \laɪnz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "laves" vs "lines" - which ranks higher?
"laves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,781 in our French list, against #27,506 for "lines". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "laves" and "lines" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "laves" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #135,044 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laves" and "lines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "liker vs lines". 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 #135,044 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