lovslocaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#8,119
“lo” frequency rank
#43,530
“loca” frequency rank
51649
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lo loca
Definition Année. Folle, femme atteinte de folie.

Where the eye mixes lo and loca

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

2 ch
lo
4 ch
loca

Look-alike desk: lo vs loca

A purely visual mix-up. lo (\lo\) and loca (\ˈlo.ka\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “lo” sits inside “loca”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51649, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lo is recorded at frequency rank #8,119, classified as anoun, pronounced \lo\. loca is at rank #43,530, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈlo.ka\.

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 51649, this pair ranks #153,452 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lo vs loca

Shared letters: lo. Private to "lo": -. Private to "loca": ac.

"lo" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "loca" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • localcoa · lloca · loac · locca · olca

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lo" and "loca" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\lo\ versus \ˈlo.ka\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lo" or "loca"?
"lo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,119 in our French list, against #43,530 for "loca". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "lo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loca" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #153,452 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lo" and "loca" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobo vs loca". 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 #153,452 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