Which to use
“leger” is an adjective and “lemur” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,234
- “leger” frequency rank
- #48,861
- “lemur” frequency rank
- 91095
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | leger | lemur |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Light; slender, slim; trivial. | Any strepsirrhine primate of the superfamily Lemuroidea, native only to Madagascar and some surrounding islands. |
Where the eye mixes leger and lemur
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses leger with lemur
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: leger is /ˈlɛd͡ʒə(ɹ)/ while lemur is /ˈliːmə(ɹ)/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91095, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
leger is recorded at frequency rank #42,234, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈlɛd͡ʒə(ɹ)/. lemur is at rank #48,861, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈliːmə(ɹ)/.
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 91095, this pair ranks #3,579 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of leger vs lemur
Shared letters: elr. Private to "leger": g. Private to "lemur": mu.
"leger" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "lemur" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "leger" for "lemur" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "leger" or "lemur" show up more?
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 "leger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lemur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #3,579 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "leger" and "lemur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leer vs lemur". 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 #3,579 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.