landervsleaderWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“lander” and “leader” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#23,886
“lander” frequency rank
#1,195
“leader” frequency rank
25081
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lander leader
Definition One who lands, or who lands something. Any person who leads or directs.

Where the eye mixes lander and leader

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
lander
6 ch
leader

Visual trap between lander and leader

A purely visual mix-up. lander ([ˈlændə]) and leader (/ˈliː.də(ɹ)/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25081, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lander is recorded at frequency rank #23,886, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈlændə]. leader is at rank #1,195, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈliː.də(ɹ)/.

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 25081, this pair ranks #397,068 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lander vs leader

Shared letters: adelr. Private to "lander": n. Private to "leader": -.

"lander" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "leader" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • landeralnder · ladner · landder · landerr · landre · lanedr · lannder · llander
  • leaderelader · laeder · leadder · leaderr · leadre · leaedr · ledaer · lleader

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lander" for "leader" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈlændə] versus /ˈliː.də(ɹ)/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lander" or "leader"?
"leader" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,195 in our English list, against #23,886 for "lander". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lander" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leader" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #397,068 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lander" and "leader" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lander vs laver". 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 #397,068 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