lassvsleapsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#26,145
“lass” frequency rank
#18,119
“leaps” frequency rank
44264
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lass leaps
Definition A girl; also (by extension), a young woman. plural of leap

Where the eye mixes lass and leaps

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
lass
5 ch
leaps

Visual trap between lass and leaps

A purely visual mix-up. lass (/læs/) and leaps (/liːps/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44264, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lass is recorded at frequency rank #26,145, classified as anoun, pronounced /læs/. leaps is at rank #18,119, tagged as anoun, pronounced /liːps/.

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 44264, this pair ranks #232,237 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lass vs leaps

Shared letters: als. Private to "lass": -. Private to "leaps": ep.

"lass" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "leaps" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lassalss · llass · lsas
  • leapselaps · laeps · leapps · leapss · leasp · lepas · lleaps

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lass" for "leaps" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/læs/ versus /liːps/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lass" or "leaps"?
"leaps" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,119 in our English list, against #26,145 for "lass". 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 "lass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leaps" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #232,237 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lass" and "leaps" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lass vs LSC". 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 #232,237 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