Which to use
“legacy” is a noun and “légaux” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #34,596
- “legacy” frequency rank
- #14,308
- “légaux” frequency rank
- 48904
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | legacy | légaux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Patrimoine, héritage. | Masculin pluriel de légal. |
Where the eye mixes legacy and légaux
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. legacy (CVCVCV) and légaux (CVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: legacy vs légaux
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: legacy is \ˈlɛɡ.ə.si\ while légaux is \le.ɡo\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48904, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
legacy is recorded at frequency rank #34,596, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈlɛɡ.ə.si\. légaux is at rank #14,308, tagged as anadj, pronounced \le.ɡo\.
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 48904, this pair ranks #175,111 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of legacy vs légaux
Shared letters: agl. Private to "legacy": cey. Private to "légaux": uxé.
"legacy" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "légaux" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- legacy ← elgacy · leagcy · legaccy · legacyy · legayc · legcay · leggacy · lgeacy
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "legacy" and "légaux" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "legacy" or "légaux" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "legacy" and "légaux" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "legacy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "légaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #175,111 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "legacy" and "légaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "legacy vs Lemay". 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 #175,111 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.