locusvslopesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#42,439
“locus” frequency rank
#26,082
“lopes” frequency rank
68521
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature locus lopes
Definition Emplacement d’un gène sur un chromosome. Pluriel de lope.

Where the eye mixes locus and lopes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. locus and lopes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
locus
5 ch
lopes

Why the eye confuses locus with lopes

A purely visual mix-up. locus (\lɔ.kys\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68521, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

locus is recorded at frequency rank #42,439, classified as anoun, pronounced \lɔ.kys\. 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 68521, this pair ranks #58,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of locus vs lopes

Shared letters: los. Private to "locus": cu. Private to "lopes": ep.

"locus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "lopes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • locus ← llocus · loccus · locsu · locuss · loucs · olcus
  • lopes ← llopes · loeps · lopess · loppes · lopse · lpoes · olpes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "locus" for "lopes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\lɔ.kys\ versus \lɔp\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "locus" or "lopes"?
"lopes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,082 in our French list, against #42,439 for "locus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "locus" 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 #58,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "locus" and "lopes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "locus vs logs". 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 #58,841 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