LeidvsluisWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#1,263
“Leid” frequency rank
#10,126
“luis” frequency rank
11389
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Leid luis
Definition starker Kummer, starker psychischer oder seelischer Schmerz Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs lui

Where the eye mixes Leid and luis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Leid and luis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
Leid
4 ch
luis

Look-alike desk: Leid vs luis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Leid is [laɪ̯t] while luis is [ˈluis]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11389, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Leid is recorded at frequency rank #1,263, classified as anoun, pronounced [laɪ̯t]. luis is at rank #10,126, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈluis].

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 11389, this pair ranks #1,970,131 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Leid vs luis

Shared letters: il. Private to "Leid": de. Private to "luis": su.

"Leid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "luis" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Leid ← elid · ledi · leidd · lleid
  • luis ← lius · lluis · luiss · lusi · ulis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Leid" for "luis" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Leid" is a noun and "luis" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Leid" or "luis" show up more?
"Leid" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,263 in our German list, against #10,126 for "luis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Leid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "luis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,970,131 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Leid" and "luis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lees vs luis". 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 #1,970,131 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