lifesvslovesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#31,638
“lifes” frequency rank
#2,220
“loves” frequency rank
33858
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lifes loves
Definition plural of life plural of love

Letter map: lifes vs loves

Shared letters muted; letters that set lifes and loves apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
lifes
5 ch
loves

Corpus notes: lifes and loves

lifes and loves are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33858, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lifes is recorded at frequency rank #31,638, classified as anoun. loves is at rank #2,220, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lʌvz/.

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 33858, this pair ranks #325,782 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lifes vs loves

Shared letters: els. Private to "lifes": fi. Private to "loves": ov.

"lifes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "loves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lifesilfes · liefs · lifess · liffes · lifse · llifes
  • loveslloves · loevs · lovess · lovse · lovves · lvoes · olves

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lifes" and "loves" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "lifes" or "loves" show up more?
"loves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,220 in our English list, against #31,638 for "lifes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lifes" and "loves".

  • Full dictionary entry for "lifes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #325,782 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lifes" and "loves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lifes vs liken". 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 #325,782 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list