Which to use
“locust” and “louse” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,979
- “locust” frequency rank
- #47,167
- “louse” frequency rank
- 76146
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | locust | louse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Any of the grasshoppers, often polyphenic and usually swarming, in the family Acrididae that are very destructive to crops and other vegetation, especially migratory locusts (Locusta migratoria). | A small parasitic wingless insect of the order Psocodea. |
Where the eye mixes locust and louse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. locust runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against louse's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between locust and louse
A purely visual mix-up. locust (/ˈləʊ.kəst/) and louse (/laʊs/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76146, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
locust is recorded at frequency rank #28,979, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈləʊ.kəst/. louse is at rank #47,167, tagged as anoun, pronounced /laʊs/.
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 76146, this pair ranks #30,942 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of locust vs louse
Shared letters: losu. Private to "locust": ct. Private to "louse": e.
"locust" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "louse" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "locust" and "louse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "locust" vs "louse" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "locust" and "louse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "locust" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "louse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #30,942 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "locust" and "louse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lope vs louse". 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 #30,942 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.