leedvslindWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#40,780
“leed” frequency rank
#36,225
“lind” frequency rank
77005
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leed lind
Definition Language; tongue. The lime tree, or linden tree.

Where the eye mixes leed and lind

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. leed (CVVC) and lind (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
leed
4 ch
lind

Look-alike desk: leed vs lind

A purely visual mix-up. leed (/liːd/) and lind (/lɪnd/) 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 77005, 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/. lind is at rank #36,225, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lɪnd/.

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 77005, this pair ranks #28,488 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of leed vs lind

Shared letters: dl. Private to "leed": e. Private to "lind": in.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leed ← eled · lede · leedd · lleed
  • lind ← ilnd · lidn · lindd · linnd · llind · lnid

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "leed" for "lind" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/liːd/ versus /lɪnd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "leed" or "lind" show up more?
"lind" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,225 in our English list, against #40,780 for "leed". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lind" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,488 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leed" and "lind" 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 #28,488 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