Which to use
“lake” and “love” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #10,319
- “lake” frequency rank
- #2,844
- “love” frequency rank
- 13163
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lake | love |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Stillgewässer, das vollständig von einer Landfläche umgeben ist; See | innige Zuneigung für jemanden oder etwas; Liebe |
Where the eye mixes lake and love
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. lake and love follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses lake with love
A purely visual mix-up. lake ([leɪk]) and love ([lʌv]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13163, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lake is recorded at frequency rank #10,319, classified as anoun, pronounced [leɪk]. love is at rank #2,844, tagged as anoun, pronounced [lʌv].
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 13163, this pair ranks #1,959,719 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of lake vs love
Shared letters: el. Private to "lake": ak. Private to "love": ov.
"lake" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "love" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "lake" and "love" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "lake" vs "love" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "lake" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "love" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,959,719 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lake" and "love" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lake vs lame". 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 #1,959,719 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.