lex
/lɛks/
"lex" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lex” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #14,983 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #14,983
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To perform lexical analysis; to convert a character stream to a token stream as a preliminary to parsing.
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 | lex |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /lɛks/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #14,983 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lex” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lex is 3 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lɛks/. Corpus data places it at rank #14,983 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "To perform lexical analysis; to convert a character stream to a token stream as a preliminary to parsing.".
lex has no tracked misspelling variants, 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 lexical analysis, from lexical. The correct English form is lex, spelled L-E-X.
Definition
- 1To perform lexical analysis; to convert a character stream to a token stream as a preliminary to parsing.
Etymology
From lexical analysis, from lexical.
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 “lex”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-E-X - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /lɛks/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “li” - see the side-by-side comparison. lex vs li
- 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.