louervslouezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,955
“louer” frequency rank
#37,896
“louez” frequency rank
42851
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature louer louez
Definition Donner à louage ou à loyer. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de louer.

Same sound, different letters: louer vs louez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. louer and louez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
louer
5 ch
louez

Homophone desk: louer vs louez

This is the hard kind. louer and louez are pronounced identically (\lwe\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - r in “louer” becomes z in “louez”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42851, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

louer is recorded at frequency rank #4,955, classified as averb, pronounced \lwe\. louez is at rank #37,896, tagged as averb, pronounced \lwe\.

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 42851, this pair ranks #222,444 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of louer vs louez

Shared letters: elou. Private to "louer": r. Private to "louez": z.

"louer" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "louez" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • louer ← llouer · loeur · louerr · loure · luoer · oluer
  • louez ← llouez · loeuz · louezz · louze · luoez · oluez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "louer" for "louez" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\lwe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "louer" or "louez"?
"louer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,955 in our French list, against #37,896 for "louez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "louer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "louez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #222,444 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "louer" and "louez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "louez vs louvet". 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 #222,444 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