lief
/liːf/
"lief" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lief” is uncommon English (frequency #76,950 among 2,297 “L” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #76,950
- frequency rank, English
- 2,297
- “L” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Beloved, dear, agreeable.
Corpus desk
Index EN-lief · lief · English
lief · rank #76,950 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #76,950
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,297
- PHOTO-FINISH Levesque
Nearest frequency peer: Levesque (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “lief”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Lepore
Lepore
23,055 corpus weight
- Levesque
Levesque
23,052 corpus weight
- lief
lief
23,051 corpus weight
- Lindemann
Lindemann
23,049 corpus weight
- linguine
linguine
23,048 corpus weight
- liquefy
liquefy
23,047 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “lief” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lief |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /liːf/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #76,950 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “lief” in English
Rare enough to double-check
lief is uncommon English at frequency #76,950 among 2,297 “L” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /liːf/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for lief, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English lef, leve, leef, from Old English lēof, from Proto-West Germanic *leub, from Proto-Germanic *leubaz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian ljo, ljoo, ljoof, West Frisian leaf, Dutch lief, German Low German leev, German lieb, Swedish and Norwegi… The correct English form is lief, spelled L-I-E-F.
Definition
- 1Beloved, dear, agreeable.
- 2Ready, willing.
Etymology
From Middle English lef, leve, leef, from Old English lēof, from Proto-West Germanic *leub, from Proto-Germanic *leubaz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian ljo, ljoo, ljoof, West Frisian leaf, Dutch lief, German Low German leev, German lieb, Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk ljuv, Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐍆𐍃 (liufs), Russian любо́вь (ljubóvʹ), Polish luby. For the adverb, compare German lieber, Dutch liever (“preferably, rather”).
Synonyms
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
How do you spell "lief"?
What does "lief" mean?
How do you pronounce "lief"?
What is the origin of the word "lief"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "lief", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).