lipsvslopesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#46,867
“lips” frequency rank
#26,082
“lopes” frequency rank
72949
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lips lopes
Definition Pluriel de lip. Pluriel de lope.

Where the eye mixes lips and lopes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. lips runs 4 letters (CVCC) against lopes's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
lips
5 ch
lopes

Visual trap between lips and lopes

A purely visual mix-up. lips (\ˈlɪps\) and lopes (\lɔp\) 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 72949, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lips is recorded at frequency rank #46,867, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈlɪps\. lopes is at rank #26,082, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lɔp\.

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 72949, this pair ranks #42,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lips vs lopes

Shared letters: lps. Private to "lips": i. Private to "lopes": eo.

"lips" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "lopes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lips ← ilps · lipps · lipss · lisp · llips
  • lopes ← llopes · loeps · lopess · loppes · lopse · lpoes · olpes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lips" and "lopes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈlɪps\ versus \lɔp\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lips" or "lopes"?
"lopes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,082 in our French list, against #46,867 for "lips". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "lips" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lopes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lips" and "lopes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lep vs lips". 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 #42,246 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