For many speakers "lieu" and "loo" are now homophones. These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors. What is the pronunciation of lieu?
Due to its unusual Francophonic spelling, many people misspell lieu (which appears most often in the phrase in lieu of) as loo or lue. We even have evidence for people assuming the phrase is inlu of.
To be in lieu of something is to replace it or substitute for it. A restaurant that's run out of clams might serve French onion soup in lieu of chowder. The word lieu originally comes from the Latin locus, meaning "place," and its meaning has stayed true to its origins ever since.
Definition of lieu noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
lieu (ljuː; luː) n stead; place (esp in the phrases in lieu, in lieu of) [C13: from Old French, ultimately from Latin locus place]
Borrowed from Middle French lieu, from Old French leu, from Latin locum, accusative of locus (“place”). Doublet of locus. Attested earlier and in Middle English only as part of the partially calqued phrase in lieu of.
noun Place; room; stead: now only in the phrase in lieu of, which is equivalent to instead of. from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
If you do, get, or give something in lieu, you do, get, or give it instead of something else, because the two things are considered to have the same value or importance.