less
/lɛs/
"less" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“less” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #305 in English word frequency and used as an adverb.
- #305
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 3
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - comparative degree of little
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 | less |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | /lɛs/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #305 |
| Misspellings tracked | 3 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “less” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for less is 4 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lɛs/. Corpus data places it at rank #305 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 3 likely wrong-spelling variants for less, with forms such as "elss", "lless", and "lses". 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, "Ls", "let", "los", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Adverb From Middle English les, lesse, leasse, lasse, from Old English lǣs (“smaller, less”), from Proto-Germanic *laisiz, from Proto-Indo-European *leys- (“to shrink, grow thin, be gentle”). Cognate with Old Frisian lēs (“less”), Old Saxon lēs (“less”). Ac… The correct English form is less, spelled L-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1comparative degree of little
- 2Used for constructing syntactic diminutive comparatives of adjectives and adverbs.
- 3To a smaller extent or degree.
Etymology
Adverb From Middle English les, lesse, leasse, lasse, from Old English lǣs (“smaller, less”), from Proto-Germanic *laisiz, from Proto-Indo-European *leys- (“to shrink, grow thin, be gentle”). Cognate with Old Frisian lēs (“less”), Old Saxon lēs (“less”). According to Kroonen (2013), from a northern Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *leh₂is- or *leh₃is-, which he connects to Lithuanian liesas (“lean”). Determiner and preposition from Middle English lees, lesse, leasse, lasse, from Old English lǣssa (“less”), from Proto-Germanic *laisizan-, from Proto-Germanic *laisiz (“smaller, lesser, fewer, lower”) (see above). Cognate with Old Frisian lessa (“less”). Verb from Middle English lessen, from the determiner. Noun from Middle English lesse, from the determiner.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: elss,lless,lses
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of less - 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 “less”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /lɛs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Ls” - see the side-by-side comparison. less vs Ls
- 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.