leash
/liːʃ/
"leash" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“leash” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #15,650 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #15,650
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A strap, cord or rope with which to restrain an animal, often a dog.
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 | leash |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /liːʃ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #15,650 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “leash” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for leash is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /liːʃ/. Corpus data places it at rank #15,650 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for leash, with forms such as "elash", "laesh", and "leahs". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "les", "Leh", "less", 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 leesshe, leysche, lesshe, a variant of more original lease, from Middle English lees, leese, leece, lese, from Old French lesse (modern French laisse), either from Latin laxa, feminine form of laxus (“loose”) or, more probably, from a de… The correct English form is leash, spelled L-E-A-S-H.
Definition
- 1A strap, cord or rope with which to restrain an animal, often a dog.
- 2A brace and a half; a tierce.
- 3A set of three animals (especially greyhounds, foxes, bucks, and hares;)
- 4A group of three.
- 5A string with a loop at the end for lifting warp threads, in a loom.
- 6A leg rope.
- 7A kind of metrical construct in Skeltonics.
Etymology
From Middle English leesshe, leysche, lesshe, a variant of more original lease, from Middle English lees, leese, leece, lese, from Old French lesse (modern French laisse), either from Latin laxa, feminine form of laxus (“loose”) or, more probably, from a deverbal of Old French lesser, laissier, from Latin laxāre (“loose”); compare lax. Doublet of laisse.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: elash,laesh,leahs,leashh,leassh,lesah,lleash
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of leash - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “leash”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-E-A-S-H - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /liːʃ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “les” - see the side-by-side comparison. leash vs les
- 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.