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Lama or llama?

lama is a noun meaning “A master of Tibetan Buddhism”; llama is a noun meaning “A South American mammal of the camel family, Lama glama, used as a domestic…”. They sound the same (/ˈlɑː.mə/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) lama is about 3.4 times as common as llama.

lamaorllama

What is the difference between lama and llama?

lamallama
Part of speechnoun, phrasenoun
Meaning

A master of Tibetan Buddhism

A South American mammal of the camel family, Lama glama, used as a domestic beast of burden and a source of wool and meat

Examplenone recordednone recorded
Formslamasllamas
Pronunciation/ˈlɑː.mə//ˈlɑː.mə/ /ˈlɑmə/ /ˈjɑmə/
In writing3.0 times per million wordsabout once in every 1 million words

Sources: lama and llama in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Every current meaning of lama and llama

lama

  1. 1

    noun A master of Tibetan Buddhism

  2. 2

    noun Alternative form of llama

  3. 3

    phrase Initialism of leaving/left against medical advice

  4. 4

    noun Initialism of long-acting muscarinic antagonist

llama

  1. 1

    noun A South American mammal of the camel family, Lama glama, used as a domestic beast of burden and a source of wool and meat

  2. 2

    noun slangA firearm, especially a handgun

Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.

Which is more common, lama or llama?

lama appears 3.0 times per million words; llama about once in every 1 million words.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How many people search lama vs llama?

“lama vs llama” is searched about 90 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“llama vs lama”, “lama or llama”).

Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.

The words