Which to use
“lay” is an adjective and “Lemay” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,500
- “lay” frequency rank
- #41,384
- “Lemay” frequency rank
- 68884
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lay | Lemay |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Variante de lé. | Nom de famille. |
Letter map: lay vs Lemay
Shared letters muted; letters that set lay and Lemay apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Role in the sentence - lay and Lemay
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lay is anadjective and Lemayaname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68884, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lay is recorded at frequency rank #27,500, classified as anadj. Lemay is at rank #41,384, tagged as aname, pronounced \lə.me\.
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 68884, this pair ranks #57,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of lay vs Lemay
Shared letters: aly. Private to "lay": -. Private to "Lemay": em.
"lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "Lemay" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- Lemay ← elmay · leamy · lemayy · lemmay · lemya · llemay · lmeay
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "lay" and "Lemay" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "lay" or "Lemay" show up more?
After this comparison
You've compared "lay" and "Lemay". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "lay" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Lemay" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #57,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lay" and "Lemay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lemay vs lemme". 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 #57,332 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.