LavsLyraWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: La is a abbrev, Lyra is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“La” is an abbrev and “Lyra” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#817
“La” frequency rank
#45,436
“Lyra” frequency rank
46253
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature La Lyra
Definition Lanthan der Kithara ähnliches altgriechisches Zupfinstrument mit fünf bis sieben Saiten

Letter map: La vs Lyra

Shared letters muted; letters that set La and Lyra apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
La
4 ch
Lyra

Part-of-speech tell for La / Lyra

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: La is anabbrev and Lyraanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46253, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

La is recorded at frequency rank #817, classified as anabbrev. Lyra is at rank #45,436, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈlyːʁa].

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 46253, this pair ranks #1,325,461 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of La vs Lyra

Shared letters: al. Private to "La": -. Private to "Lyra": ry.

"La" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "Lyra" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Lyrallyra · lrya · lyar · lyrra · lyyra · ylra

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "La" and "Lyra" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "La" is an abbrev and "Lyra" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "La" vs "Lyra" - which ranks higher?
"La" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #817 in our German list, against #45,436 for "Lyra". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "La" vs "Lyra" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "La" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Lyra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,325,461 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "La" and "Lyra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lepra vs Lyra". 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 #1,325,461 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list