lui vs lv, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“lui” is a pronoun and “lv” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#68
“lui” frequency rank: #22,324
“lv” frequency rank: 22392
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	lui	lv
Definition	Pronom clitique de la troisième personne du singulier épicène du complément d’objet indirect.	La vie, la vérité.

Letter map: lui vs lv

Shared letters muted; letters that set lui and lv apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

lui

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for lui / lv

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lui is apronoun and lvanintj. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22392, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lui is recorded at frequency rank #68, classified as apron, pronounced \lɥi\. lv is at rank #22,324, tagged as anintj.

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 22392, this pair ranks #358,225 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lui vs lv

Shared letters: l. Private to "lui": iu. Private to "lv": v.

"lui" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "lv" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lui" for "lv" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lui" is a pronoun and "lv" an intj, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary French text, does "lui" or "lv" show up more?

"lui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #68 in our French list, against #22,324 for "lv". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lui" and "lv".

Full dictionary entry for "lui" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lv" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #358,225 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"lui" and "lv" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lep vs lv". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #358,225 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.