late vs Lauf, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“late” is an adjective and “Lauf” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,348
“late” frequency rank: #1,737
“Lauf” frequency rank: 16085
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	late	Lauf
Definition	spät	schnelle Fortbewegung zu Fuß, bei der kurzzeitig kein Bodenkontakt besteht

Letter map: late vs Lauf

Shared letters muted; letters that set late and Lauf apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

late

4 ch

Lauf

Role in the sentence - late and Lauf

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: late is anadjective and Laufanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16085, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

late is recorded at frequency rank #14,348, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. Lauf is at rank #1,737, tagged as anoun, pronounced [laʊ̯f].

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 16085, this pair ranks #1,938,727 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of late vs Lauf

Shared letters: al. Private to "late": et. Private to "Lauf": fu.

"late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "Lauf" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

late ← laet · llate · ltae
Lauf ← aluf · lafu · lauff · llauf · luaf

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "late" and "Lauf" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "late" is an adjective and "Lauf" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "late" or "Lauf"?

"Lauf" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,737 in our German list, against #14,348 for "late". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "late" vs "Lauf" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "late" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "Lauf" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,938,727 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"late" and "Lauf" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "late 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 #1,938,727 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.