leg
/lɛɡ/
"leg" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“leg” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #2,215) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #2,215
- frequency rank, English
- 2,297
- “L” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A limb or appendage that an animal uses for support or locomotion on land.
Corpus desk
Index EN-leg · leg · English
leg · rank #2,215 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #2,215
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,297
- PHOTO-FINISH laugh
Nearest frequency peer: laugh (-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 “leg”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Italy
Italy
97,789 corpus weight
- jersey
jersey
97,788 corpus weight
- laugh
laugh
97,787 corpus weight
- leg
leg
97,786 corpus weight
- letters
letters
97,785 corpus weight
- liberal
liberal
97,784 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “leg” 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 | leg |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lɛɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #2,215 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “leg” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for leg is neighbouring look-alikes ("li", "Lt", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /lɛɡ/. Frequency #2,215 among 2,297 “L” headwords. 27 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Zero misspellings are on record for leg in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "li", "Lt", "lo", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English leg, legge, from Old Norse leggr (“leg, calf, bone of the arm or leg, hollow tube, stalk”), from Proto-Germanic *lagjaz, *lagwijaz (“leg, thigh”) (see it for more). Cognate with Scots leg (“leg”), Icelandic leggur (“leg, limb”), Norwegia… The correct English form is leg, spelled L-E-G.
Definition
- 1A limb or appendage that an animal uses for support or locomotion on land.
- 2In humans, the lower limb extending from the groin to the ankle.
- 3The portion of the lower limb of a human that extends from the knee to the ankle.
- 4A part of garment, such as a pair of trousers/pants, that covers a leg.
- 5A rod-like protrusion from an inanimate object, such as a piece of furniture, supporting it from underneath.
- 6Something that supports.
- 7A stage of a journey, race etc.
- 8A distance that a sailing vessel does without changing the sails from one side to the other.
- 9One side of a multiple-sided (often triangular) course in a sailing race.
- 10A single game or match played in a tournament or other sporting contest.
- 11One of the two sides of a right triangle that is not the hypotenuse.
- 12One of the two equal sides of an isosceles triangle.
- 13One of the branches of a hyperbola or other curve which extend outward indefinitely.
- 14The ability of something to persist or succeed over a long period of time.
- 15A disreputable sporting character; a blackleg.
- 16An extension of a steam boiler downward, in the form of a narrow space between vertical plates, sometimes nearly surrounding the furnace and ash pit, and serving to support the boiler; called also water leg.
- 17In a grain elevator, the case containing the lower part of the belt which carries the buckets.
- 18Denotes the half of the field on the same side as the batsman's legs; the left side for a right-handed batsman.
- 19A branch or lateral circuit connecting an instrument with the main line.
- 20A branch circuit; one phase of a polyphase system.
- 21An underlying instrument of a derivatives strategy.
- 22An army soldier assigned to a paratrooper unit who has not yet been qualified as a paratrooper.
- 23A gesture of submission; a bow or curtsey. Chiefly in phrase make a leg.
- 24A column, as a unit of length of text as laid out.
- 25Synonym of leg up (“forming a step for a person's feet with one's hands”).
- 26An individual bet in a parlay (a series of bets where the stake and winnings are cumulatively carried forward).
- 27Synonym of blackleg (“a gambling cheat”).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how leg appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Insects have six legs.
Dan won't be able to come to the party, since he broke his leg last week and is now on crutches.
Etymology
From Middle English leg, legge, from Old Norse leggr (“leg, calf, bone of the arm or leg, hollow tube, stalk”), from Proto-Germanic *lagjaz, *lagwijaz (“leg, thigh”) (see it for more). Cognate with Scots leg (“leg”), Icelandic leggur (“leg, limb”), Norwegian Bokmål legg (“leg”), Norwegian Nynorsk legg (“leg”), Swedish lägg (“leg, shank, shaft”), Danish læg (“leg”), Lombardic lagi (“thigh, shank, leg”), Latin lacertus (“limb, arm”), Persian لنگ (leng). Upon borrowing, mostly displaced the native Old English term sċanca (Modern English shank).
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 "leg", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "leg". Here's where to go from here.
- "leg" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "li". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #2,215 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.