# louse vs lousy

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### louse
*noun · IPA /laʊs/ · frequency rank #47,167*
A small parasitic wingless insect of the order Psocodea.

### lousy
*adjective · IPA /ˈlaʊ.zi/ · frequency rank #19,383*
Remarkably bad; of poor quality.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/louse-vs-lousy