lobedvsloseConfusable pair

Quick tell: lobed is a adjective, lose is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lobed” is an adjective and “lose” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,330
“lobed” frequency rank
#879
“lose” frequency rank
49209
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lobed lose
Definition Having lobes. To cease to have (something) in one's possession or capability.

Where the eye mixes lobed and lose

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. lobed runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against lose's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
lobed
4 ch
lose

Why the eye confuses lobed with lose

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lobed is /loʊbd/ while lose is /luːz/. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49209, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lobed is recorded at frequency rank #48,330, classified as anadj, pronounced /loʊbd/. lose is at rank #879, tagged as averb, pronounced /luːz/.

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 49209, this pair ranks #185,764 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lobed vs lose

Shared letters: elo. Private to "lobed": bd. Private to "lose": s.

"lobed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "lose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lobed ← lboed · llobed · lobbed · lobde · lobedd · loebd · olbed
  • lose ← llose · loes · losse · lsoe · olse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lobed" and "lose" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lobed" is an adjective and "lose" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lobed" vs "lose" - which ranks higher?
"lose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #879 in our English list, against #48,330 for "lobed". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "lobed" and "lose" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lobed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lose" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,764 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lobed" and "lose" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobed vs lope". 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 #185,764 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