lad
/læd/
"lad" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lad” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #8,307 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #8,307
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A boy or young man.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lad |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /læd/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #8,307 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lad” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lad is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /læd/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,307 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for lad, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "le", "li", "Lt", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English ladde (“foot soldier, servant; male commoner; boy”), from late Old English *ladda (attested in Old English personal byname Ladda), probably of North Germanic origin. Compare Old Norse ladd (“hose, woolen stocking; sock”), which may have … The correct English form is lad, spelled L-A-D.
Definition
- 1A boy or young man.
- 2A hedonistic or irresponsible young man; A Jack the lad.
- 3A familiar term of address for a young man.
- 4A groom who works with horses.
- 5The penis.
- 6A scammer.
Etymology
From Middle English ladde (“foot soldier, servant; male commoner; boy”), from late Old English *ladda (attested in Old English personal byname Ladda), probably of North Germanic origin. Compare Old Norse ladd (“hose, woolen stocking; sock”), which may have undergone semantic shift to mean a term of abuse (e.g. foolish youth, youngster of lower social status, etc.); thence by connotative amelioration coming to mean any young fellow. Compare Norwegian ladd (“rough sock, woolen or felt slipper”) and the -ladd in compounds Askeladd/Askeladden (a nickname in fairy tales, "Ash Lad") and tusseladd (“nincompoop”). See also Swedish ladder (“old shoes”), lodde (“Frisian shoe”), lädder (“socks”), all said to be related to Old Norse loðinn (“hairy, shaggy, woolly”), loddi (“shaggy dog”).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “lad”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-A-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /læd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “le” - see the side-by-side comparison. lad vs le
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.