linkvslongWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#12,611
“link” frequency rank
#401
“long” frequency rank
13012
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature link long
Definition (Non comparable, utilisé uniquement comme épithète, sans prédicat) Gauche, de gauche. Qualifie des objets considérés dans leur dimension d’une extrémité à l’autre, par opposition à court.

Where the eye mixes link and long

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

4 ch
link
4 ch
long

Why the eye confuses link with long

A purely visual mix-up. link (\lɪŋk\) and long (\lɔ̃\) 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 13012, 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\. long is at rank #401, tagged as anadj, pronounced \lɔ̃\.

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 13012, this pair ranks #402,799 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of link vs long

Shared letters: ln. Private to "link": ik. Private to "long": go.

"link" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "long" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • linkilnk · likn · linkk · linnk · llink · lnik
  • longllong · lnog · logn · longg · lonng · olng

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "link" for "long" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\lɪŋk\ versus \lɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "link" vs "long" - which ranks higher?
"long" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #401 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "link" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "long" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #402,799 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "link" and "long" 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 #402,799 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