leasedvsleaveConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#12,629
“leased” frequency rank
#457
“leave” frequency rank
13086
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leased leave
Definition simple past and past participle of lease To have a consequence or remnant.

Where the eye mixes leased and leave

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
leased
5 ch
leave

Look-alike desk: leased vs leave

A purely visual mix-up. leased (/liːst/) and leave (/liːv/) 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 13086, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leased is recorded at frequency rank #12,629, classified as averb, pronounced /liːst/. leave is at rank #457, tagged as averb, pronounced /liːv/.

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 13086, this pair ranks #477,847 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of leased vs leave

Shared letters: ael. Private to "leased": ds. Private to "leave": v.

"leased" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "leave" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leasedelased · laesed · leaesd · leasde · leasedd · leassed · lesaed · lleased
  • leaveelave · laeve · leaev · leavve · levae · lleave

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "leased" and "leave" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/liːst/ versus /liːv/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "leased" or "leave"?
"leave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #457 in our English list, against #12,629 for "leased". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "leased" and "leave" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leased" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leave" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #477,847 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leased" and "leave" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leased vs lessee". 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 #477,847 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