locusvslorisWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#42,439
“locus” frequency rank
#41,874
“loris” frequency rank
84313
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature locus loris
Definition Emplacement d’un gène sur un chromosome. Genre de la sous-famille des Lorinae comprenant des primates prosimiens de l’Inde.

Where the eye mixes locus and loris

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

Visual trap between locus and loris

A purely visual mix-up. locus (\lɔ.kys\) and loris (\lɔ.ʁis\) 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 84313, 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\. loris is at rank #41,874, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lɔ.ʁis\.

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 84313, this pair ranks #13,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of locus vs loris

Shared letters: los. Private to "locus": cu. Private to "loris": ir.

"locus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "loris" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • locus ← llocus · loccus · locsu · locuss · loucs · olcus
  • loris ← lloris · loirs · loriss · lorris · lorsi · lrois · olris

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "locus" for "loris" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\lɔ.kys\ versus \lɔ.ʁis\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "locus" vs "loris" - which ranks higher?
"loris" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,874 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.

Useful next steps

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 "loris" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "locus" and "loris" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "login vs loris". 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 #13,221 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