lucevsluckTell them apart

Which to use

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

#29,356
“luce” frequency rank
#1,312
“luck” frequency rank
30668
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature luce luck
Definition The pike, Esox lucius, when fully grown. Something that happens to someone by chance, a chance occurrence.

Where the eye mixes luce and luck

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
luce
4 ch
luck

Look-alike desk: luce vs luck

A purely visual mix-up. luce (/luːs/) and luck (/lʌk/) 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 a single letter - e in “luce” becomes k in “luck”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30668, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

luce is recorded at frequency rank #29,356, classified as anoun, pronounced /luːs/. luck is at rank #1,312, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lʌk/.

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 30668, this pair ranks #352,632 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of luce vs luck

Shared letters: clu. Private to "luce": e. Private to "luck": k.

"luce" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "luck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lucelluce · lucce · luec · ulce
  • lucklcuk · lluck · lucck · luckk · lukc · ulck

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "luce" and "luck" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/luːs/ versus /lʌk/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "luce" or "luck"?
"luck" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,312 in our English list, against #29,356 for "luce". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "luce" and "luck" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "luce" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "luck" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #352,632 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "luce" and "luck" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "luce vs lucent". 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 #352,632 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