Which to use
“Laban” is a name and “lazar” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #40,319
- “Laban” frequency rank
- #37,065
- “lazar” frequency rank
- 77384
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Laban | lazar |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The brother of Rebekah and uncle of Jacob and Esau. | Synonym of leper: a person suffering from Hansen's disease; a person suffering any contagious disease requiring similar isolation. |
Where the eye mixes Laban and lazar
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Laban and lazar follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between Laban and lazar
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Laban is /ˈlɑːbən/ while lazar is /ˈleɪzə/. 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 (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77384, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Laban is recorded at frequency rank #40,319, classified as aname, pronounced /ˈlɑːbən/. lazar is at rank #37,065, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈleɪzə/.
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 77384, this pair ranks #27,433 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of Laban vs lazar
Shared letters: al. Private to "Laban": bn. Private to "lazar": rz.
"Laban" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "lazar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Laban" for "lazar" ever safe?
Which is more common, "Laban" or "lazar"?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "Laban" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lazar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #27,433 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Laban" and "lazar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laver vs lazar". 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 #27,433 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.