lifevslinkWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#134
“life” frequency rank
#1,108
“link” frequency rank
1242
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature life link
Definition The state of organisms preceding their death, characterized by biological processes such as metabolism and reproduction and distinguishing them from inanimate objects; the state of being alive and living. A connection between places, people, events, things, or ideas.

Where the eye mixes life and link

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
life
4 ch
link

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. life (/laɪf/) and link (/lɪŋk/) 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 1242, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

life is recorded at frequency rank #134, classified as anoun, pronounced /laɪf/. link is at rank #1,108, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lɪŋk/.

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 1242, this pair ranks #527,806 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of life vs link

Shared letters: il. Private to "life": ef. Private to "link": kn.

"life" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "link" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lifeilfe · lfie · lief · liffe · llife
  • linkilnk · likn · linkk · linnk · llink · lnik

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "life" and "link" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/laɪf/ versus /lɪŋk/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "life" or "link"?
"life" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #134 in our English list, against #1,108 for "link". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list