levyvsloyTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#19,894
“levy” frequency rank
#44,027
“loy” frequency rank
63921
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature levy loy
Definition Prélever, imposer. Ancienne variante orthographique de loi.

Letter map: levy vs loy

Shared letters muted; letters that set levy and loy apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. levy runs 4 letters (CVCV) against loy's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
levy
3 ch
loy

Part-of-speech tell for levy / loy

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: levy is averb and loyanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

levy is recorded at frequency rank #19,894, classified as averb. loy is at rank #44,027, 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 63921, this pair ranks #79,523 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of levy vs loy

Shared letters: ly. Private to "levy": ev. Private to "loy": o.

"levy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "loy" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • levy ← elvy · levvy · levyy · leyv · llevy · lvey

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "levy" for "loy" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "levy" is a verb and "loy" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "levy" or "loy"?
"levy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,894 in our French list, against #44,027 for "loy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "levy" vs "loy" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "levy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #79,523 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "levy" and "loy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobo vs loy". 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 #79,523 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