leonevsloneWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#16,405
“leone” frequency rank
#41,871
“lone” frequency rank
58276
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leone lone
Definition Devise officielle de la Sierra Leone depuis 1964. Seul ; sans compagnons.

Letter map: leone vs lone

Shared letters muted; letters that set leone and lone apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. leone runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against lone's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
leone
4 ch
lone

Grammar separator: leone vs lone

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: leone is anoun and loneanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58276, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leone is recorded at frequency rank #16,405, classified as anoun. lone is at rank #41,871, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ləʊn\.

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 58276, this pair ranks #110,002 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of leone vs lone

Shared letters: elno. Private to "leone": -. Private to "lone": -.

"leone" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "lone" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leone ← elone · lenoe · leoen · leonne · lleone · loene
  • lone ← llone · lnoe · loen · lonne · olne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "leone" for "lone" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "leone" is a noun and "lone" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "leone" or "lone"?
"leone" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,405 in our French list, against #41,871 for "lone". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "leone" and "lone".

  • Full dictionary entry for "leone" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,002 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leone" and "lone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lone vs longo". 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 #110,002 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