losvslustTell them apart

Which to use

“los” and “lust” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,728
“los” frequency rank
#10,882
“lust” frequency rank
12610
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature los lust
Definition A medium-sized wildcat, most of them part of the genus Lynx. A feeling of strong desire, especially such a feeling driven by sexual arousal.

Where the eye mixes los and lust

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

3 ch
los
4 ch
lust

Look-alike desk: los vs lust

A purely visual mix-up. los (/lɒs/) and lust (/ˈlʌst/) 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 12610, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

los is recorded at frequency rank #1,728, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɒs/. lust is at rank #10,882, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlʌst/.

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 12610, this pair ranks #480,572 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of los vs lust

Shared letters: ls. Private to "los": o. Private to "lust": tu.

"los" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "lust" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lustllust · lusst · lustt · luts · ulst

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "los" and "lust" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/lɒs/ versus /ˈlʌst/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "los" or "lust" show up more?
"los" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,728 in our English list, against #10,882 for "lust". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "los" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lust" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #480,572 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "los" and "lust" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "LSC vs lust". 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 #480,572 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