lowevslowestWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lowe is a noun, lowest is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#13,751
“lowe” frequency rank
#3,569
“lowest” frequency rank
17320
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lowe lowest
Definition Alternative form of low ("flame"). superlative form of low: most low

Letter map: lowe vs lowest

Shared letters muted; letters that set lowe and lowest apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
lowe
6 ch
lowest

Part-of-speech tell for lowe / lowest

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lowe is anoun and lowestanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “lowe” sits inside “lowest”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lowe is recorded at frequency rank #13,751, classified as anoun. lowest is at rank #3,569, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈləʊ.ɪst/.

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 17320, this pair ranks #452,193 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lowe vs lowest

Shared letters: elow. Private to "lowe": -. Private to "lowest": st.

"lowe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "lowest" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lowellowe · lowwe · lwoe · olwe
  • lowestllowest · loewst · lowesst · lowestt · lowets · lowset · lowwest · lwoest

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lowe" and "lowest" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lowe" is a noun and "lowest" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "lowe" vs "lowest" - which ranks higher?
"lowest" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,569 in our English list, against #13,751 for "lowe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lowe" and "lowest".

  • Full dictionary entry for "lowe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lowest" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #452,193 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lowe" and "lowest" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lope vs lowe". 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 #452,193 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