lassvsloosWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,145
“lass” frequency rank
#37,546
“loos” frequency rank
63691
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Where the eye mixes lass and loos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
lass
4 ch
loos

Why the eye confuses lass with loos

A purely visual mix-up. lass (/læs/) and loos (/luːz/) 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 63691, 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/. loos is at rank #37,546, tagged as anoun, pronounced /luːz/.

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 63691, this pair ranks #81,573 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lass vs loos

Shared letters: ls. Private to "lass": a. Private to "loos": o.

"lass" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "loos" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lassalss · llass · lsas
  • looslloos · looss · loso · olos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lass" for "loos" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/læs/ versus /luːz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "lass" vs "loos" - which ranks higher?
"lass" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,145 in our English list, against #37,546 for "loos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "lass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,573 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lass" and "loos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "loos vs lope". 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 #81,573 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