loivslooWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#300
“loi” frequency rank
#47,432
“loo” frequency rank
47732
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature loi loo
Definition Règle, obligations écrites, prescrites ou tacites, auxquelles les personnes se doivent de se conformer. Cabinets, toilettes, waters, petit coin (pièce destinée à faire ses besoins).

Where the eye mixes loi and loo

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

3 ch
loi
3 ch
loo

Look-alike desk: loi vs loo

A purely visual mix-up. loi (\lwa\) and loo (\lu\) 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 a single letter - i in “loi” becomes o in “loo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47732, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

loi is recorded at frequency rank #300, classified as anoun, pronounced \lwa\. loo is at rank #47,432, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lu\.

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 47732, this pair ranks #184,575 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of loi vs loo

Shared letters: lo. Private to "loi": i. Private to "loo": -.

"loi" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "loo" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "loi" for "loo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\lwa\ versus \lu\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "loi" or "loo"?
"loi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #300 in our French list, against #47,432 for "loo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "loi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #184,575 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "loi" and "loo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "longo vs loo". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #184,575 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