lochvslothWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: loch is a noun, loth is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#36,033
“loch” frequency rank
#45,714
“loth” frequency rank
81747
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature loch loth
Definition Plan d’eau, lac, fjord, estuaire, baie ou crique en Écosse ou en Irlande. Variante orthographique de loath.

Letter map: loch vs loth

Shared letters muted; letters that set loch and loth apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. loch and loth follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
loch
4 ch
loth

Part-of-speech tell for loch / loth

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: loch is anoun and lothanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “loch” becomes t in “loth”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81747, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

loch is recorded at frequency rank #36,033, classified as anoun, pronounced \lɔk\. loth is at rank #45,714, tagged as anadj.

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 81747, this pair ranks #18,108 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of loch vs loth

Shared letters: hlo. Private to "loch": c. Private to "loth": t.

"loch" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "loth" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • loch ← lcoh · lloch · locch · lochh · lohc · olch
  • loth ← lloth · loht · lothh · lotth · ltoh · olth

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "loch" and "loth" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "loch" is a noun and "loth" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "loch" or "loth" show up more?
"loch" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,033 in our French list, against #45,714 for "loth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "loch" vs "loth" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "loch" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,108 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "loch" and "loth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobo vs loth". 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 #18,108 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