Which to use
“legal” and “légaux” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #24,656
- “legal” frequency rank
- #14,308
- “légaux” frequency rank
- 38964
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | legal | légaux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Légal, légale : conforme à la loi. | Masculin pluriel de légal. |
Where the eye mixes legal and légaux
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. legal runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against légaux's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between legal and légaux
A purely visual mix-up. legal (\leˈɡaːl\) and légaux (\le.ɡo\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38964, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
legal is recorded at frequency rank #24,656, classified as anadj, pronounced \leˈɡaːl\. 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 38964, this pair ranks #251,542 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of legal vs légaux
Shared letters: agl. Private to "legal": e. Private to "légaux": uxé.
"legal" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "légaux" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- legal ← elgal · leagl · legall · leggal · legla · lgeal · llegal
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "legal" and "légaux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "legal" vs "légaux" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "legal" 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 #251,542 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "legal" and "légaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "legal vs Leia". 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 #251,542 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.