LonsvsloyWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Lons is a name, loy is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Lons” is a name and “loy” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,034
“Lons” frequency rank
#44,027
“loy” frequency rank
80061
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Lons loy
Definition Nom de famille. Ancienne variante orthographique de loi.

Letter map: Lons vs loy

Shared letters muted; letters that set Lons and loy apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Lons runs 4 letters (CVCC) against loy's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
Lons
3 ch
loy

Grammar separator: Lons vs loy

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Lons is aname and loyanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80061, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Lons is recorded at frequency rank #36,034, classified as aname. loy is at rank #44,027, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lwa\.

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 80061, this pair ranks #21,825 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Lons vs loy

Shared letters: lo. Private to "Lons": ns. Private to "loy": y.

"Lons" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "loy" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Lons ← llons · lnos · lonns · lonss · losn · olns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Lons" for "loy" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Lons" is a name and "loy" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Lons" or "loy" show up more?
"Lons" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,034 in our French list, against #44,027 for "loy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Lons" and "loy".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Lons" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,825 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Lons" and "loy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobo vs loy". 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 #21,825 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