leçonvsLecoqWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: leçon is a noun, Lecoq is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“leçon” is a noun and “Lecoq” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,467
“leçon” frequency rank
#46,267
“Lecoq” frequency rank
49734
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leçon Lecoq
Definition Petite portion d’une discipline enseignée à un groupe de personnes ou à une seule personne. Nom de famille.

Where the eye mixes leçon and Lecoq

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. leçon and Lecoq follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
leçon
5 ch
Lecoq

Why the eye confuses leçon with Lecoq

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: leçon is \lə.sɔ̃\ while Lecoq is \lə.kɔk\. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49734, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leçon is recorded at frequency rank #3,467, classified as anoun, pronounced \lə.sɔ̃\. Lecoq is at rank #46,267, tagged as aname, pronounced \lə.kɔk\.

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 49734, this pair ranks #168,240 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of leçon vs Lecoq

Shared letters: elo. Private to "leçon": nç. Private to "Lecoq": cq.

"leçon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Lecoq" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Lecoq ← elcoq · lceoq · leccoq · lecoqq · lecqo · leocq · llecoq

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "leçon" and "Lecoq" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "leçon" is a noun and "Lecoq" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "leçon" or "Lecoq" show up more?
"leçon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,467 in our French list, against #46,267 for "Lecoq". 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 "leçon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Lecoq" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #168,240 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leçon" and "Lecoq" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lech vs Lecoq". 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 #168,240 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