latevsloveWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#14,348
“late” frequency rank
#2,844
“love” frequency rank
17192
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature late love
Definition spät innige Zuneigung für jemanden oder etwas; Liebe

Letter map: late vs love

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

4 ch
late
4 ch
love

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: late is anadjective and loveanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17192, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

late is recorded at frequency rank #14,348, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. 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 17192, this pair ranks #1,929,572 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of late vs love

Shared letters: el. Private to "late": at. Private to "love": ov.

"late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "love" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • latelaet · llate · ltae
  • lovellove · loev · lovve · lvoe · olve

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "late" and "love" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "late" is an adjective and "love" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "late" or "love"?
"love" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,844 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "late" 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 #1,929,572 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "late" and "love" 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list