lake
/leɪk/
"lake" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lake” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,564 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,564
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A large, landlocked stretch of water or similar liquid.
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 | lake |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /leɪk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,564 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lake” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lake is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /leɪk/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,564 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for lake, with forms such as "alke", "laek", and "lakke". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "le", "law", "lie", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Arose from a conflation of * Middle English lake (“small stream of running water, pool, lake”), from Old English lacu (“stream, pool, pond, lake”), from Proto-West Germanic *laku, from Proto-Germanic *lakō (“stream, pool, body of water", originally "a place… The correct English form is lake, spelled L-A-K-E.
Definition
- 1A large, landlocked stretch of water or similar liquid.
- 2A large amount of liquid.
- 3A small stream of running water; a channel for water; a drain.
- 4A pit, or ditch.
Etymology
Arose from a conflation of * Middle English lake (“small stream of running water, pool, lake”), from Old English lacu (“stream, pool, pond, lake”), from Proto-West Germanic *laku, from Proto-Germanic *lakō (“stream, pool, body of water", originally "a place where water runs off and collects”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to leak, drain”); with * Middle English lac (“lake”), from Old French lac (“lake, ditch, pit”), a borrowed term, likely from Latin lacus (“lake, tub, vat”) (see Old French lac for more). The first element is related to Dutch laak (“stream, drainage ditch, pond”), German Low German Lake, Laak (“drainage, marshland”), German Lache (“puddle, pool”), Norwegian løk (“a deep, slow-moving stream; a widening in a stream or river”), Faroese løkur (“small brook”) and lækja (“water hole, well, watershoot in a brook”), Icelandic lækur (“stream”). Despite their similarity in form and meaning, Old English lacu is not related to English lay (“lake”), Latin lacus (“hollow, lake, pond”), Scottish Gaelic loch (“lake”), Ancient Greek λάκκος (lákkos, “waterhole, tank, pond, pit”), all from Proto-Indo-European *lókus, *l̥kwés (“lake, pool”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alke,laek,lakke,lkae,llake
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of lake - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “lake”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-A-K-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /leɪk/ (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. lake 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.