lost
/lɒst/
"lost" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lost” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #400 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #400
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - simple past and past participle of lose
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 | lost |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /lɒst/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #400 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lost” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lost is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lɒst/. Corpus data places it at rank #400 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "simple past and past participle of lose".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for lost, with forms such as "llost", "losst", and "lostt". 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, "Lt", "Ls", "lot", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English loste, losede (preterite) and Middle English lost, ilost, ilosed (past participle), from Old English losode (preterite) and Old English losod, ġelosod, equivalent to lose + -t. The correct English form is lost, spelled L-O-S-T.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of lose
Etymology
From Middle English loste, losede (preterite) and Middle English lost, ilost, ilosed (past participle), from Old English losode (preterite) and Old English losod, ġelosod, equivalent to lose + -t.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: llost,losst,lostt,lsot,olst
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of lost - 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 “lost”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-O-S-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /lɒst/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Lt” - see the side-by-side comparison. lost vs Lt
- 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.