leivslevisWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: lei is a noun, levis is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lei” is a noun and “levis” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,248
“lei” frequency rank
#30,689
“levis” frequency rank
60937
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lei levis
Definition Pluriel de leu. Qu’on lève.

Where the eye mixes lei and levis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
lei
5 ch
levis

Look-alike desk: lei vs levis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lei is \lɛj\ while levis is \lə.vi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60937, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lei is recorded at frequency rank #30,248, classified as anoun, pronounced \lɛj\. levis is at rank #30,689, tagged as anadj, pronounced \lə.vi\.

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 60937, this pair ranks #94,965 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lei vs levis

Shared letters: eil. Private to "lei": -. Private to "levis": sv.

"lei" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "levis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • levisleivs · leviss · levsi · levvis · llevis · lveis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lei" for "levis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lei" is a noun and "levis" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "lei" or "levis"?
"lei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,248 in our French list, against #30,689 for "levis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "lei" and "levis" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "levis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,965 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lei" and "levis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lei vs lep". 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 #94,965 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