levsluxeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#3
“le” frequency rank
#2,834
“luxe” frequency rank
2837
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature le luxe
Definition Ce… dont on parle maintenant. Déterminant marquant un nom masculin singulier, référant à une seule entité possible dans un contexte. Pratique sociale consistant à pratiquer des dépenses somptuaires et superflues, dans le but de s’entourer d’un raffinement fastueux ou par pur goût de l’ostentation, par opposition aux facteurs ne relevant que de la stricte nécessité.

Where the eye mixes le and luxe

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

2 ch
le
4 ch
luxe

Visual trap between le and luxe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: le is \lə\ while luxe is \lyks\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 2837, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

le is recorded at frequency rank #3, classified as anarticle, pronounced \lə\. luxe is at rank #2,834, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lyks\.

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 2837, this pair ranks #435,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of le vs luxe

Shared letters: el. Private to "le": -. Private to "luxe": ux.

"le" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "luxe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • luxelluxe · luex · luxxe · lxue · ulxe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "le" and "luxe" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "le" is an article and "luxe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "le" or "luxe"?
"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3 in our French list, against #2,834 for "luxe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "le" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "luxe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #435,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "le" and "luxe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lure vs luxe". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #435,378 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