lo
/ləʊ/
"lo" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lo” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #6,373) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #6,373
- frequency rank, English
- 2,297
- “L” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - look, see, behold (in an imperative sense).
Corpus desk
Index EN-lo · lo · English
lo · rank #6,373 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,373
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,297
- PHOTO-FINISH Lucy
Nearest frequency peer: Lucy (+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 neighbours of confusable “lo”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- intel
intel
93,631 corpus weight
- kicks
kicks
93,630 corpus weight
- lo
lo
93,628 corpus weight
- Lucy
Lucy
93,627 corpus weight
- magazines
magazines
93,626 corpus weight
- matrix
matrix
93,625 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “lo” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | lo |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | /ləʊ/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #6,373 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “lo”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for lo is neighbouring look-alikes ("Lt", "LP", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced /ləʊ/. Frequency #6,373 among 2,297 “L” headwords. Gloss: "look, see, behold (in an imperative sense).".
No generated misspelling entries exist for lo in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Lt", "LP", "Ls", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English lo, loo, from Old English lā (“exclamation of surprise, grief, or joy”). Conflated in Middle English with lo! (interjection), a corruption of lok!, loke! (“look!”) (as in lo we! (look we!)). Cognate with Scots lo, lu (“lo”). Se… The correct English form is lo, spelled L-O.
Definition
- 1look, see, behold (in an imperative sense).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lo appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Caliban: Lo, lo again! Bite him to death, I prithee.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night, Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultán's Turret in a Noose of light.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English lo, loo, from Old English lā (“exclamation of surprise, grief, or joy”). Conflated in Middle English with lo! (interjection), a corruption of lok!, loke! (“look!”) (as in lo we! (look we!)). Cognate with Scots lo, lu (“lo”). See also look.
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.