Which to use
“leek” and “lye” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #34,158
- “leek” frequency rank
- #40,787
- “lye” frequency rank
- 74945
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | leek | lye |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A vegetable of variety Allium ampeloprasum, having edible leaves and an onion-like bulb but with a milder flavour than the onion. | An alkaline liquid made by leaching ashes (usually wood ashes). |
Where the eye mixes leek and lye
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. leek runs 4 letters (CVVC) against lye's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: leek vs lye
A purely visual mix-up. leek (/liːk/) and lye (/laɪ/) 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 74945, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
leek is recorded at frequency rank #34,158, classified as anoun, pronounced /liːk/. lye is at rank #40,787, tagged as anoun, pronounced /laɪ/.
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 74945, this pair ranks #34,689 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of leek vs lye
Shared letters: el. Private to "leek": k. Private to "lye": y.
"leek" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "lye" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- leek ← elek · leekk · lek · leke · lleek
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "leek" for "lye" ever safe?
Frequency check: "leek" vs "lye" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "leek" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lye" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #34,689 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "leek" and "lye" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "LSC vs lye". 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 #34,689 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.