leakervsleaseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#48,319
“leaker” frequency rank
#5,432
“lease” frequency rank
53751
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leaker lease
Definition Somebody who leaks information. An interest in land granting exclusive use or occupation of real estate for a limited period; a leasehold.

Letter map: leaker vs lease

Shared letters muted; letters that set leaker and lease apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. leaker runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against lease's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
leaker
5 ch
lease

Spelling & dictionary notes on leaker vs lease

leaker and lease are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53751, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leaker is recorded at frequency rank #48,319, classified as anoun. lease is at rank #5,432, tagged as anoun, pronounced /liːs/.

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 53751, this pair ranks #146,503 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of leaker vs lease

Shared letters: ael. Private to "leaker": kr. Private to "lease": s.

"leaker" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "lease" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leaker ← elaker · laeker · leaekr · leakerr · leakker · leakre · lekaer · lleaker
  • lease ← elase · laese · leaes · leasse · lesae · llease

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "leaker" for "lease" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "leaker" vs "lease" - which ranks higher?
"lease" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,432 in our English list, against #48,319 for "leaker". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "leaker" vs "lease" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leaker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lease" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,503 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leaker" and "lease" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laver vs leaker". 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 #146,503 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