Which to use
“lay” is an adjective and “loi” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,500
- “lay” frequency rank
- #300
- “loi” frequency rank
- 27800
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lay | loi |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Variante de lé. | Règle, obligations écrites, prescrites ou tacites, auxquelles les personnes se doivent de se conformer. |
Letter map: lay vs loi
Shared letters muted; letters that set lay and loi apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.
Part-of-speech tell for lay / loi
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lay is anadjective and loianoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27800, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lay is recorded at frequency rank #27,500, classified as anadj. loi is at rank #300, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lwa\.
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 27800, this pair ranks #326,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lay vs loi
Shared letters: l. Private to "lay": ay. Private to "loi": io.
"lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "loi" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "lay" for "loi" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "lay" or "loi" show up more?
What to do next
Pair "lay" vs "loi" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "lay" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "loi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #326,676 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lay" and "loi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lay vs lep". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #326,676 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.