lervsloverWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ler is a noun, lover is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ler” is a noun and “lover” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,868
“ler” frequency rank
#32,057
“lover” frequency rank
73925
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ler lover
Definition Pin. Enrouler en spirale (un câble, un cordage, un bout ou une haussière).

Letter map: ler vs lover

Shared letters muted; letters that set ler and lover apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
ler
5 ch
lover

Role in the sentence - ler and lover

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ler is anoun and loveraverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73925, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ler is recorded at frequency rank #41,868, classified as anoun. lover is at rank #32,057, tagged as averb, pronounced \lɔ.ve\.

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 73925, this pair ranks #38,862 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ler vs lover

Shared letters: elr. Private to "ler": -. Private to "lover": ov.

"ler" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "lover" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • loverllover · loevr · loverr · lovre · lovver · lvoer · olver

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ler" for "lover" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ler" is a noun and "lover" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ler" or "lover"?
"lover" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,057 in our French list, against #41,868 for "ler". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "ler" vs "lover" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lover" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,862 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ler" and "lover" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lep vs ler". 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 #38,862 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