Which to use
“lay” is an adjective and “loy” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,500
- “lay” frequency rank
- #44,027
- “loy” frequency rank
- 71527
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lay | loy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Variante de lé. | Ancienne variante orthographique de loi. |
Letter map: lay vs loy
Shared letters muted; letters that set lay and loy apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for lay / loy
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lay is anadjective and loyanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “lay” becomes o in “loy”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71527, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lay is recorded at frequency rank #27,500, classified as anadj. loy is at rank #44,027, 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 71527, this pair ranks #47,248 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of lay vs loy
Shared letters: ly. Private to "lay": a. Private to "loy": o.
"lay" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "loy" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "lay" for "loy" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "lay" or "loy" show up more?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lay" and "loy".
- Full dictionary entry for "lay" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "loy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #47,248 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lay" and "loy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobo vs loy". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #47,248 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.