lei
/leɪ/noun
lei is spelled L-E-I: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 23,253rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, lei means “A garland of flowers in Hawaii” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of lei is leis.
How many letters and syllables are in lei?
| Letters | 3: L-E-I |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.5 times per million words; the 23,253rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Sounds like | |
| 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 lei?
Lei appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 23,253rd 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 lei?
- /leɪ/
Lei 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)-Persent101-lei.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with lei
Sounds like: lay (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with lei?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as lei.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: lie, ile.
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 lei
- leis plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lei mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A garland of flowers in Hawaii.
- 2
plural of leu
noun
- 1
Acronym of Legal Entity Identifier, a unique global identifier for legal entities participating in financial transactions.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does lei come from?
Borrowed from Hawaiian lei.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).