lopevslosWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#49,466
“lope” frequency rank
#1,728
“los” frequency rank
51194
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lope los
Definition To travel an easy pace with long strides. A medium-sized wildcat, most of them part of the genus Lynx.

Where the eye mixes lope and los

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
lope
3 ch
los

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lope is /ləʊp/ while los is /lɒs/. 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 51194, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lope is recorded at frequency rank #49,466, classified as averb, pronounced /ləʊp/. los is at rank #1,728, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lɒs/.

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 51194, this pair ranks #167,564 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lope vs los

Shared letters: lo. Private to "lope": ep. Private to "los": s.

"lope" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "los" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lopellope · loep · loppe · lpoe · olpe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lope" and "los" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lope" is a verb and "los" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "lope" or "los"?
"los" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,728 in our English list, against #49,466 for "lope". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list