linkvslitTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#12,611
“link” frequency rank
#771
“lit” frequency rank
13382
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature link lit
Definition (Non comparable, utilisé uniquement comme épithète, sans prédicat) Gauche, de gauche. Meuble sur lequel on se couche pour dormir, généralement composé d’un cadre de bois ou de métal, qu’on garnit d’un sommier ou d’une paillasse, d’un ou plusieurs matelas, d’un traversin, d’un ou plusieurs oreillers, de draps et de couvertures.

Where the eye mixes link and lit

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
link
3 ch
lit

Look-alike desk: link vs lit

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: link is \lɪŋk\ while lit is \li\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13382, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

link is recorded at frequency rank #12,611, classified as anadj, pronounced \lɪŋk\. lit is at rank #771, tagged as anoun, pronounced \li\.

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 13382, this pair ranks #401,245 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of link vs lit

Shared letters: il. Private to "link": kn. Private to "lit": t.

"link" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "lit" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • linkilnk · likn · linkk · linnk · llink · lnik

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "link" for "lit" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "link" is an adjective and "lit" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "link" or "lit"?
"lit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #771 in our French list, against #12,611 for "link". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "link" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #401,245 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "link" and "lit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "link vs lung". 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 #401,245 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