loisvslooksWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,296
“lois” frequency rank
#25,386
“looks” frequency rank
26682
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lois looks
Definition Pluriel de loi. Pluriel de look.

Where the eye mixes lois and looks

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

4 ch
lois
5 ch
looks

Look-alike desk: lois vs looks

A purely visual mix-up. lois (\lwa\) and looks (\luk\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26682, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lois is recorded at frequency rank #1,296, classified as anoun, pronounced \lwa\. looks is at rank #25,386, tagged as anoun, pronounced \luk\.

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 26682, this pair ranks #333,474 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lois vs looks

Shared letters: los. Private to "lois": i. Private to "looks": k.

"lois" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "looks" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • loislios · llois · loiss · losi · olis
  • looksllooks · lokos · loks · lookks · lookss · loosk · oloks

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lois" for "looks" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\lwa\ versus \luk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "lois" vs "looks" - which ranks higher?
"lois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,296 in our French list, against #25,386 for "looks". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "lois" and "looks" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lois" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "looks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #333,474 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lois" and "looks" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "loo vs looks". 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 #333,474 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