love
/lʌv/
"love" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“love” is in the everyday core of English, ranked #147 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #147
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A deep caring for the existence of another.
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 | love |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lʌv/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #147 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “love” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for love is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lʌv/. Corpus data places it at rank #147 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for love, with forms such as "llove", "loev", and "lovve". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "LV", "low", "luv", 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 Middle English love, luve, from Old English lufu, from Proto-West Germanic *lubu, from Proto-Germanic *lubō, from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“love, care, desire”). The close of a letter sense is presumably a truncation of With love or the like. The v… The correct English form is love, spelled L-O-V-E.
Definition
- 1A deep caring for the existence of another.
- 2Strong affection.
- 3Strong affection.
- 4Strong affection.
- 5Strong affection.
- 6A person who is the object of romantic feelings; a darling, a sweetheart, a beloved.
- 7A term of friendly address, regardless of feelings.
- 8A thing, activity, etc. which is the object of one's deep liking or enthusiasm.
- 9Sexual desire; attachment based on sexual attraction.
- 10Sexual activity.
- 11An instance or episode of being in love; a love affair.
- 12Used as the closing, before the signature, of a letter, especially between good friends or family members, or by the young.
- 13Alternative letter-case form of Love (“personification of love”).
- 14A thin silk material.
- 15A climbing plant, Clematis vitalba.
Etymology
From Middle English love, luve, from Old English lufu, from Proto-West Germanic *lubu, from Proto-Germanic *lubō, from Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ- (“love, care, desire”). The close of a letter sense is presumably a truncation of With love or the like. The verb is from Middle English loven, luvien, from Old English lufian (“to love”), from Proto-West Germanic *lubōn (“to love”), derived from the noun. Eclipsed non-native English amour (“love”), borrowed from Norman amour (“love”). Cognates Cognate with Scots luve (“love”), Saterland Frisian ljo, ljoo, ljoof (“dear, sweet”), Ljoote, Ljoowe (“love”), West Frisian leaf (“friendly, kind, cordial”), leafde (“love”), Dutch lief (“lovely, nice, sweet”), liefde (“love”), German lieb (“dear; lovable”), Liebe (“love”), German Low German Leevde, Lieve (“love”), Luxembourgish léif (“lovely, kind, nice, sweet”), Léift (“love”), Vilamovian łiwa (“love”), Yiddish ליב (lib, “nice; kind”), Icelandic ljúfur (“beloved, dear”), Norwegian Nynorsk, Swedish ljuv (“lovely, sweet”), Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐍆𐍃 (liufs, “beloved, dear”), Albanian lyp (“to beg”), Russian любовь (ljubovʹ, “love”), Lithuanian liaupsė (“praise”), Latin libido (“desire, lust”), Polish lubić (“to like”), Persian آلفتن (âloftan, “to enamor”), Sanskrit लोभ (lobha, “desire, greed”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: llove,loev,lovve,lvoe,olve
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of love - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “love”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-O-V-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /lʌv/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “LV” - see the side-by-side comparison. love vs LV
- 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.