lemvsloiWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“lem” and “loi” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#40,348
“lem” frequency rank
#300
“loi” frequency rank
40648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lem loi
Definition Membre, partie du corps. Règle, obligations écrites, prescrites ou tacites, auxquelles les personnes se doivent de se conformer.

Letter map: lem vs loi

Shared letters muted; letters that set lem and loi apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
lem
3 ch
loi

Spelling & dictionary notes on lem vs loi

lem and loi are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lem is recorded at frequency rank #40,348, classified as anoun. loi is at rank #300, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lwa\.

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 40648, this pair ranks #239,002 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lem vs loi

Shared letters: l. Private to "lem": em. Private to "loi": io.

"lem" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "loi" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lem" and "loi" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "lem" or "loi" show up more?
"loi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #300 in our French list, against #40,348 for "lem". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "lem" and "loi". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #239,002 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lem" and "loi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lem vs lep". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #239,002 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