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PlainSpell

leaf

/lif/noun, verb

leaf is spelled L-E-A-F: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 17 times per million words in written English, the 4,934th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, leaf means “The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of leaf is leaves.

How many letters and syllables are in leaf?

Letters4: L-E-A-F
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing17 times per million words; the 4,934th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Sounds like
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is leaf?

Leaf appears 17 times per million words in written English, the 4,934th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce leaf?

  • UK /liːf/
  • US /lif/

Leaf has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-leaf.wav, En-us-leaf.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with leaf

Sounds like: lief (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with leaf?

5 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as leaf from its last stressed vowel (/if/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: flea, alef, feal.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of leaf

  • leaves plural
  • leafs present, singular, he/she/it
  • leafing participle, present
  • leafed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does leaf mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants.

  2. 2

    A foliage leaf or any of the many and often considerably different structures it can specialise into.

  3. 3

    Anything resembling the leaf of a plant.

  4. 4

    A sheet of a book, magazine, etc. (consisting of two pages, one on each face of the leaf).

  5. 5

    A sheet of any substance beaten or rolled until very thin.

    gold leaf

  6. 6

    One of the individual flat or curved strips of metal, typically made of spring steel, that make up a leaf spring.

  7. 7

    Tea leaves.

  8. 8

    A flat section used to extend the size of a table.

verb

  1. 1

    To produce leaves; put forth foliage.

  2. 2

    To divide (a vegetable) into separate leaves.

    The lettuce in our burgers is 100% hand-leafed.

  3. 3

    informalTo play a prank on someone by throwing a large clump or collection of leaves at them.

noun

as Leaf
  1. 1

    A Canadian person.

  2. 2

    CanadaslangA member of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, its organization, or its supporters.

  3. 3

    A model of car built by Nissan, with a name chosen for its green connotations.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate leaf?

Wiktionary records 3 abbreviations of leaf: l, l., lf.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Leaf in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfeuille (part of a plant), feuillet (sheet of a book), feuiller (to produce leaves)
GermanBlatt, Laubblatt (part of a plant), Platte (flat section used to extend a table)
Portuguesefolha (part of a plant), aba (flat section used to extend a table)
Spanishhoja, foja (desus.), fronda, coscoja (part of a plant)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does leaf come from?

From Middle English lef, leef, from Old English lēaf, from Proto-West Germanic *laub, from Proto-Germanic *laubą (“leaf”), from Proto-Indo-European *lowbʰ-o-m, from *lewbʰ- (“to cut off”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after leaf