leedvsletsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#40,780
“leed” frequency rank
#2,952
“lets” frequency rank
43732
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leed lets
Definition Language; tongue. plural of let

Where the eye mixes leed and lets

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

4 ch
leed
4 ch
lets

Visual trap between leed and lets

A purely visual mix-up. leed (/liːd/) and lets (/lɛts/) 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 43732, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leed is recorded at frequency rank #40,780, classified as anoun, pronounced /liːd/. lets is at rank #2,952, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lɛts/.

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 43732, this pair ranks #237,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of leed vs lets

Shared letters: el. Private to "leed": d. Private to "lets": st.

"leed" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "lets" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leedeled · lede · leedd · lleed
  • letselts · letss · letts · llets · ltes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "leed" for "lets" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/liːd/ versus /lɛts/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "leed" vs "lets" - which ranks higher?
"lets" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,952 in our English list, against #40,780 for "leed". 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 "leed" and "lets" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lets" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #237,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leed" and "lets" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leed vs lel". 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 #237,190 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