levslooWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: le is a article, loo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#3
“le” frequency rank
#47,432
“loo” frequency rank
47435
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature le loo
Definition Ce… dont on parle maintenant. Déterminant marquant un nom masculin singulier, référant à une seule entité possible dans un contexte. Cabinets, toilettes, waters, petit coin (pièce destinée à faire ses besoins).

Where the eye mixes le and loo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch
le
3 ch
loo

Visual trap between le and loo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: le is \lə\ while loo is \lu\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (article vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47435, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

le is recorded at frequency rank #3, classified as anarticle, pronounced \lə\. loo is at rank #47,432, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lu\.

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 47435, this pair ranks #186,968 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of le vs loo

Shared letters: l. Private to "le": e. Private to "loo": o.

"le" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "loo" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "le" for "loo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "le" is an article and "loo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "le" vs "loo" - which ranks higher?
"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3 in our French list, against #47,432 for "loo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "le" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,968 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "le" and "loo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "longo vs loo". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #186,968 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list