licevslureWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“lice” and “lure” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#14,965
“lice” frequency rank
#48,019
“lure” frequency rank
62984
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lice lure
Definition Palissade, en particulier celle qui délimite le champ clos préparé pour les jeux et exercices équestres, les joutes, tournois, etc. Leurre.

Where the eye mixes lice and lure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. lice and lure follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
lice
4 ch
lure

Look-alike desk: lice vs lure

A purely visual mix-up. lice (\lis\) and lure (\lʊər\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62984, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lice is recorded at frequency rank #14,965, classified as anoun, pronounced \lis\. lure is at rank #48,019, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lʊər\.

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 62984, this pair ranks #84,243 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lice vs lure

Shared letters: el. Private to "lice": ci. Private to "lure": ru.

"lice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "lure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lice ← ilce · lcie · licce · liec · llice
  • lure ← llure · lrue · lurre · ulre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lice" and "lure" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\lis\ versus \lʊər\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lice" or "lure"?
"lice" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,965 in our French list, against #48,019 for "lure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "lice" and "lure" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #84,243 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lice" and "lure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lar vs lure". 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 #84,243 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