léchervsLutherWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lécher is a verb, Luther is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lécher” is a verb and “Luther” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,177
“lécher” frequency rank
#11,610
“Luther” frequency rank
26787
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lécher Luther
Definition Passer la langue sur quelque chose. Nom de famille allemand, surtout connu par Martin Luther.

Where the eye mixes lécher and Luther

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. lécher and Luther follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
lécher
6 ch
Luther

Visual trap between lécher and Luther

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lécher is \le.ʃe\ while Luther is \ly.tɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26787, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lécher is recorded at frequency rank #15,177, classified as averb, pronounced \le.ʃe\. Luther is at rank #11,610, tagged as aname, pronounced \ly.tɛʁ\.

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 26787, this pair ranks #332,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lécher vs Luther

Shared letters: ehlr. Private to "lécher": cé. Private to "Luther": tu.

"lécher" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "Luther" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Luther ← lluther · ltuher · luhter · lutehr · lutherr · luthher · luthre · lutther

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lécher" for "Luther" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lécher" is a verb and "Luther" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "lécher" or "Luther"?
"Luther" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,610 in our French list, against #15,177 for "lécher". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "lécher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Luther" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #332,867 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lécher" and "Luther" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lécher vs loches". 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 #332,867 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