lees
/liːz/noun
lees is spelled L-E-E-S: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 27,462nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, lees means “The sediment that settles during fermentation of beverages, consisting of dead yeast and precipitated parts of the fruit” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in lees?
| Letters | 4: L-E-E-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.1 times per million words; the 27,462nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| 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 lees?
Lees appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 27,462nd 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 lees?
- /liːz/
Lees 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)-Vealhurl-lees.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with lees?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as lees.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: else, seel, slee, sele.
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).
What does lees mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The sediment that settles during fermentation of beverages, consisting of dead yeast and precipitated parts of the fruit.
- 2
plural of lee
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lees in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the sediment that settles during fermentation of beverages, consisting of dead y:
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 lees come from?
From Old French lies, from Medieval Latin lias (“lees, dregs”) (descent via winemaking common in monasteries), from Gaulish *ligyā, *legyā (“silt, sediment”) (compare Welsh llai, Old Breton leh (“deposit, silt”)), from Proto-Celtic *legyā (“layer”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie (down)”). Doublet of lias; also related to Loire and Leicester.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).