lawsvsletsConfusable pair

Quick tell: laws is a noun, lets is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#38,251
“laws” frequency rank
#18,317
“lets” frequency rank
56568
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laws lets
Definition Plural des Substantivs law 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs let

Letter map: laws vs lets

Shared letters muted; letters that set laws and lets apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
laws
4 ch
lets

Part-of-speech tell for laws / lets

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: laws is anoun and letsaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56568, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

laws is recorded at frequency rank #38,251, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. lets is at rank #18,317, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 56568, this pair ranks #935,237 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of laws vs lets

Shared letters: ls. Private to "laws": aw. Private to "lets": et.

"laws" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "lets" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lawsalws · lasw · lawss · lawws · llaws · lwas
  • letselts · letss · letts · llets · ltes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "laws" and "lets" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "laws" is a noun and "lets" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "laws" or "lets" show up more?
"lets" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,317 in our German list, against #38,251 for "laws". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "laws" and "lets".

  • Full dictionary entry for "laws" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #935,237 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laws" and "lets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laws 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 #935,237 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