lacedvsLaredoTell them apart

Quick tell: laced is a adjective, Laredo is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“laced” is an adjective and “Laredo” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,882
“laced” frequency rank
#35,808
“Laredo” frequency rank
55690
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laced Laredo
Definition Fastened with lace or laces (light cordage). A large city, the county seat of Webb County, Texas, United States.

Where the eye mixes laced and Laredo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
laced
6 ch
Laredo

Visual trap between laced and Laredo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: laced is /leɪst/ while Laredo is /ləˈreɪdoʊ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55690, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

laced is recorded at frequency rank #19,882, classified as anadj, pronounced /leɪst/. Laredo is at rank #35,808, tagged as aname, pronounced /ləˈreɪdoʊ/.

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 55690, this pair ranks #131,754 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of laced vs Laredo

Shared letters: adel. Private to "laced": c. Private to "Laredo": or.

"laced" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Laredo" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lacedalced · lacced · lacde · lacedd · laecd · lcaed · llaced
  • Laredoalredo · laerdo · lardeo · lareddo · lareod · larredo · llaredo · lraedo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "laced" for "Laredo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "laced" is an adjective and "Laredo" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "laced" or "Laredo" show up more?
"laced" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,882 in our English list, against #35,808 for "Laredo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "laced" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Laredo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #131,754 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laced" and "Laredo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lando vs Laredo". 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 #131,754 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list