lobedvslovesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#48,330
“lobed” frequency rank
#2,220
“loves” frequency rank
50550
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lobed loves
Definition Having lobes. plural of love

Where the eye mixes lobed and loves

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. lobed and loves follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
lobed
5 ch
loves

Why the eye confuses lobed with loves

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lobed is /loʊbd/ while loves is /lʌvz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50550, 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/. 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 50550, this pair ranks #173,279 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lobed vs loves

Shared letters: elo. Private to "lobed": bd. Private to "loves": sv.

"lobed" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "loves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lobed ← lboed · llobed · lobbed · lobde · lobedd · loebd · olbed
  • loves ← lloves · loevs · lovess · lovse · lovves · lvoes · olves

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lobed" for "loves" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lobed" is an adjective and "loves" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lobed" vs "loves" - which ranks higher?
"loves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,220 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

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lobed" 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 #173,279 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lobed" and "loves" 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 #173,279 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