Which to use
“leper” and “lepers” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #37,540
- “leper” frequency rank
- #48,323
- “lepers” frequency rank
- 85863
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | leper | lepers |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A person who has leprosy, a person suffering from Hansen's disease. | plural of leper |
Where the eye mixes leper and lepers
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between leper and lepers
A purely visual mix-up. leper (/ˈlɛpɚ/) and lepers (/ˈlɛpɚz/) 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 extra letter(s) - “leper” sits inside “lepers”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 85863, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
leper is recorded at frequency rank #37,540, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɛpɚ/. lepers is at rank #48,323, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɛpɚz/.
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 85863, this pair ranks #9,742 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of leper vs lepers
Shared letters: elpr. Private to "leper": -. Private to "lepers": s.
"leper" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "lepers" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "leper" and "lepers" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "leper" vs "lepers" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "leper" and "lepers" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "leper" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lepers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #9,742 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "leper" and "lepers" 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 #9,742 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.