lignéevsligueWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#8,875
“lignée” frequency rank
#1,166
“ligue” frequency rank
10041
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lignée ligue
Definition Ensemble des humains qui font partie d’une même famille généalogique. Confédération de plusieurs États, pour se défendre ou pour attaquer.

Where the eye mixes lignée and ligue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. lignée runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against ligue's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
lignée
5 ch
ligue

Look-alike desk: lignée vs ligue

A purely visual mix-up. lignée (\li.ɲe\) and ligue (\liɡ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10041, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lignée is recorded at frequency rank #8,875, classified as anoun, pronounced \li.ɲe\. ligue is at rank #1,166, tagged as anoun, pronounced \liɡ\.

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 10041, this pair ranks #414,428 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lignée vs ligue

Shared letters: egil. Private to "lignée": né. Private to "ligue": u.

"lignée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "ligue" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ligue ← ilgue · lgiue · ligeu · liggue · liuge · lligue

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lignée" and "ligue" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\li.ɲe\ versus \liɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "lignée" or "ligue" show up more?
"ligue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,166 in our French list, against #8,875 for "lignée". 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 "lignée" and "ligue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lignée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ligue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,428 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lignée" and "ligue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lianes vs lignée". 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 #414,428 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