latevsLeeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: late is a adjective, Lee is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#14,348
“late” frequency rank
#4,444
“Lee” frequency rank
18792
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature late Lee
Definition spät Laut Duden kann Lee sowohl das weibliche als auch das sächliche Geschlecht haben. In der Geografie wird nur die sächliche Form benutzt. In der Seemannssprache wird Lee meist ohne Artikel benutzt.

Letter map: late vs Lee

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

4 ch
late
3 ch
Lee

Part-of-speech tell for late / Lee

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: late is anadjective and Leeanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18792, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

late is recorded at frequency rank #14,348, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. Lee is at rank #4,444, tagged as anoun, pronounced [leː].

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 18792, this pair ranks #1,914,887 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of late vs Lee

Shared letters: el. Private to "late": at. Private to "Lee": -.

"late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Lee" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • latelaet · llate · ltae

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "late" and "Lee" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "late" is an adjective and "Lee" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "late" or "Lee" show up more?
"Lee" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,444 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.

After this comparison

You've compared "late" and "Lee". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "late" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Lee" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,914,887 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "late" and "Lee" 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 #1,914,887 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