Which to use
“lay” is an adjective and “lo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,500
- “lay” frequency rank
- #8,119
- “lo” frequency rank
- 35619
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lay | lo |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Variante de lé. | Année. |
Letter map: lay vs lo
Shared letters muted; letters that set lay and lo apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.
Part-of-speech tell for lay / lo
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lay is anadjective and loanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35619, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lay is recorded at frequency rank #27,500, classified as anadj. lo is at rank #8,119, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lo\.
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 35619, this pair ranks #275,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lay vs lo
Shared letters: l. Private to "lay": ay. Private to "lo": o.
"lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "lo" · 2 letters · shape CV
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "lay" and "lo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "lay" or "lo" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lay" and "lo".
- Full dictionary entry for "lay" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #275,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lay" and "lo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lay vs lep". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #275,399 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.