liresvslisezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: lires is a noun, lisez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lires” is a noun and “lisez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,129
“lires” frequency rank
#6,625
“lisez” frequency rank
41754
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lires lisez
Definition Pluriel de lire. Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de lire.

Where the eye mixes lires and lisez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
lires
5 ch
lisez

Visual trap between lires and lisez

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lires is \liʁ\ while lisez is \li.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41754, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lires is recorded at frequency rank #35,129, classified as anoun, pronounced \liʁ\. lisez is at rank #6,625, tagged as averb, pronounced \li.ze\.

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 41754, this pair ranks #230,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lires vs lisez

Shared letters: eils. Private to "lires": r. Private to "lisez": z.

"lires" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "lisez" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • liresilres · liers · liress · lirres · lirse · llires · lries
  • lisezilsez · liesz · lisezz · lissez · lisze · llisez · lsiez

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lires" and "lisez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lires" is a noun and "lisez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lires" vs "lisez" - which ranks higher?
"lisez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,625 in our French list, against #35,129 for "lires". 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 "lires" and "lisez" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lires" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lisez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #230,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lires" and "lisez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "liker vs lires". 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 #230,736 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