livedvsloveWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: lived is a verb, love is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lived” is a verb and “love” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,398
“lived” frequency rank
#147
“love” frequency rank
1545
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lived love
Definition simple past and past participle of live A deep caring for the existence of another.

Where the eye mixes lived and love

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
lived
4 ch
love

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lived is /lɪvd/ while love is /lʌv/. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1545, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lived is recorded at frequency rank #1,398, classified as averb, pronounced /lɪvd/. love is at rank #147, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lʌv/.

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 1545, this pair ranks #527,203 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lived vs love

Shared letters: elv. Private to "lived": di. Private to "love": o.

"lived" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "love" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • livedilved · lievd · livde · livedd · livved · llived · lvied
  • lovellove · loev · lovve · lvoe · olve

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lived" and "love" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lived" is a verb and "love" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "lived" or "love"?
"love" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #147 in our English list, against #1,398 for "lived". 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