leervsLTEWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: leer is a adjective, LTE is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“leer” is an adjective and “LTE” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,116
“leer” frequency rank
#9,590
“LTE” frequency rank
11706
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leer LTE
Definition (fast) ohne (physischen) Inhalt Long Term Evolution, ein Mobilfunkstandard (4. Generation)

Letter map: leer vs LTE

Shared letters muted; letters that set leer and LTE apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
leer
3 ch
LTE

Part-of-speech tell for leer / LTE

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: leer is anadjective and LTEanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leer is recorded at frequency rank #2,116, classified as anadj, pronounced [leːɐ̯]. LTE is at rank #9,590, tagged as anabbrev, 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 11706, this pair ranks #1,968,379 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of leer vs LTE

Shared letters: el. Private to "leer": r. Private to "LTE": t.

"leer" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "LTE" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leereler · leerr · ler · lere · lleer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "leer" for "LTE" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "leer" is an adjective and "LTE" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "leer" or "LTE" show up more?
"leer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,116 in our German list, against #9,590 for "LTE". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "leer" and "LTE".

  • Full dictionary entry for "leer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "LTE" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,968,379 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leer" and "LTE" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "LTE 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 #1,968,379 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