labs vs lack, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“labs” is a noun and “lack” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,163
“labs” frequency rank: #12,118
“lack” frequency rank: 45281
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	labs	lack
Definition	Plural des Substantivs lab	2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs lacken

Letter map: labs vs lack

Shared letters muted; letters that set labs and lack apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

labs

4 ch

lack

Part-of-speech tell for labs / lack

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: labs is anoun and lackaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45281, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

labs is recorded at frequency rank #33,163, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. lack is at rank #12,118, tagged as averb, pronounced [lak].

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 45281, this pair ranks #1,358,405 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of labs vs lack

Shared letters: al. Private to "labs": bs. Private to "lack": ck.

"labs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "lack" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

labs ← albs · labbs · labss · lasb · llabs
lack ← alck · lacck · lackk · lakc · lcak · llack

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "labs" and "lack" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "labs" is a noun and "lack" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "labs" or "lack" show up more?

"lack" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,118 in our German list, against #33,163 for "labs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "labs" and "lack". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "labs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lack" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,358,405 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"labs" and "lack" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "labs vs puzzles". 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 #1,358,405 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.