lesvslevisWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#7
“les” frequency rank
#30,689
“levis” frequency rank
30696
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature les levis
Definition Pluriel de le ou la. Qu’on lève.

Where the eye mixes les and levis

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

3 ch
les
5 ch
levis

Visual trap between les and levis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: les is \le\ 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 (article vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30696, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

les is recorded at frequency rank #7, classified as anarticle, pronounced \le\. 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 30696, this pair ranks #308,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of les vs levis

Shared letters: els. Private to "les": -. Private to "levis": iv.

"les" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "levis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "les" and "levis" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "les" is an article and "levis" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "les" or "levis"?
"les" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7 in our French list, against #30,689 for "levis". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "les" 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 #308,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "les" and "levis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "levais vs levis". 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 #308,551 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