lea
/liː/
"lea" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lea” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #13,556) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #13,556
- frequency rank, English
- 2,297
- “L” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An open field, meadow, pasture.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lea · lea · English
lea · rank #13,556 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #13,556
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,297
- PHOTO-FINISH latitude
Nearest frequency peer: latitude (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “lea”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Kenyan
Kenyan
86,448 corpus weight
- latitude
latitude
86,446 corpus weight
- lea
lea
86,445 corpus weight
- libertarian
libertarian
86,444 corpus weight
- Luxembourg
Luxembourg
86,443 corpus weight
- majestic
majestic
86,442 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “lea” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | lea |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /liː/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #13,556 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lea” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for lea is neighbouring look-alikes ("li", "Lt", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /liː/. Frequency #13,556 among 2,297 “L” headwords. Gloss: "An open field, meadow, pasture.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for lea, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "li", "Lt", "lo", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English legh, lege, lei (“clearing, open ground”), from Old English lēah (“clearing in a forest”) from Proto-West Germanic *lauh (“meadow”), from Proto-Germanic *lauhaz (“meadow”), from Proto-Indo-European *lówkos (“field, meadow”). Akin to Old … The correct English form is lea, spelled L-E-A.
Definition
- 1An open field, meadow, pasture.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lea appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
19th century, Alfred Tennyson, Circumstance Two children in two neighbor villages Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas;
Etymology
From Middle English legh, lege, lei (“clearing, open ground”), from Old English lēah (“clearing in a forest”) from Proto-West Germanic *lauh (“meadow”), from Proto-Germanic *lauhaz (“meadow”), from Proto-Indo-European *lówkos (“field, meadow”). Akin to Old Frisian lāch (“meadow”), Old Saxon lōh (“forest, grove”) (Middle Dutch loo (“forest, thicket”); Dutch -lo (“in placenames”)), Old High German lōh (“covered clearing, low bushes”), Old Norse lō (“clearing, meadow”).
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "lea", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "lea". Here's where to go from here.
- "lea" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "li". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #13,556 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "L" letter cohort. L–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.