légionvsLennonTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#6,410
“légion” frequency rank
#23,267
“Lennon” frequency rank
29677
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature légion Lennon
Definition Corps d’infanterie romaine ayant varié de quatre mille soldats sous la République romaine à six mille sous le Haut-Empire et environ mille au Bas-Empire, commandé par un légat de rang sénatorial. Lennon (commune française, située dans le département du Finistère) ; elle fait partie du Bidar.

Where the eye mixes légion and Lennon

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. légion (CVCVVC) and Lennon (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
légion
6 ch
Lennon

Visual trap between légion and Lennon

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: légion is \le.ʒjɔ̃\ while Lennon is \ˈlɛnːɔ̃n\. 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 name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29677, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

légion is recorded at frequency rank #6,410, classified as anoun, pronounced \le.ʒjɔ̃\. Lennon is at rank #23,267, tagged as aname, pronounced \ˈlɛnːɔ̃n\.

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 29677, this pair ranks #315,183 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of légion vs Lennon

Shared letters: lno. Private to "légion": gié. Private to "Lennon": e.

"légion" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "Lennon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Lennon ← elnnon · lennno · lennonn · lenon · lenonn · llennon · lnenon

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "légion" and "Lennon" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "légion" is a noun and "Lennon" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "légion" or "Lennon" show up more?
"légion" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,410 in our French list, against #23,267 for "Lennon". 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 "légion" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Lennon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #315,183 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "légion" and "Lennon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "landon vs Lennon". 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 #315,183 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