lestevsloseWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: leste is a adjective, lose is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49,192
“leste” frequency rank
#34,601
“lose” frequency rank
83793
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leste lose
Definition Qui a de la facilité, de la légèreté dans ses mouvements. Variante de lauze.

Letter map: leste vs lose

Shared letters muted; letters that set leste and lose apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. leste runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against lose's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
leste
4 ch
lose

Grammar separator: leste vs lose

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: leste is anadjective and loseanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83793, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leste is recorded at frequency rank #49,192, classified as anadj, pronounced \lɛst\. lose is at rank #34,601, tagged as anoun.

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 83793, this pair ranks #14,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of leste vs lose

Shared letters: els. Private to "leste": t. Private to "lose": o.

"leste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "lose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leste ← elste · leset · lesste · lestte · letse · lleste · lsete
  • lose ← llose · loes · losse · lsoe · olse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "leste" and "lose" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "leste" is an adjective and "lose" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "leste" or "lose"?
"lose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,601 in our French list, against #49,192 for "leste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "leste" vs "lose" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lose" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,158 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leste" and "lose" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lemme vs leste". 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 #14,158 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