Which to use
“leery” is an adjective and “lees” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,321
- “leery” frequency rank
- #27,538
- “lees” frequency rank
- 75859
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | leery | lees |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cautious, suspicious, wary, hesitant, or nervous about something; having reservations or concerns. | The sediment that settles during fermentation of beverages, consisting of dead yeast and precipitated parts of the fruit. |
Where the eye mixes leery and lees
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. leery runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against lees's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: leery vs lees
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: leery is /ˈlɪəɹi/ while lees is /liːz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75859, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
leery is recorded at frequency rank #48,321, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈlɪəɹi/. lees is at rank #27,538, tagged as anoun, pronounced /liːz/.
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 75859, this pair ranks #31,812 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of leery vs lees
Shared letters: el. Private to "leery": ry. Private to "lees": s.
"leery" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "lees" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "leery" for "lees" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "leery" or "lees" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "leery" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lees" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #31,812 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "leery" and "lees" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leery vs lepers". 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 #31,812 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.