levslepWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: le is a article, lep is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“le” is an article and “lep” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3
“le” frequency rank
#49,766
“lep” frequency rank
49769
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature le lep
Definition Ce… dont on parle maintenant. Déterminant marquant un nom masculin singulier, référant à une seule entité possible dans un contexte. Beau, agréable.

Where the eye mixes le and lep

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
le
3 ch
lep

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: le is \lə\ while lep is \lɛːp\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “le” sits inside “lep”, and the parts of speech differ too (article vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49769, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

le is recorded at frequency rank #3, classified as anarticle, pronounced \lə\. lep is at rank #49,766, tagged as anadj, pronounced \lɛːp\.

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 49769, this pair ranks #167,996 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of le vs lep

Shared letters: el. Private to "le": -. Private to "lep": p.

"le" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "lep" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "le" and "lep" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "le" is an article and "lep" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "le" or "lep"?
"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3 in our French list, against #49,766 for "lep". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list