lux
/lʌks/
"lux" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lux” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #18,878) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #18,878
- frequency rank, English
- 2,297
- “L” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - In the International System of Units, the derived unit of illuminance or illumination; one lumen per square metre. Symbol: lx
Corpus desk
Index EN-lux · lux · English
lux · rank #18,878 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #18,878
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,297
- PHOTO-FINISH lunchtime
Nearest frequency peer: lunchtime (-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 “lux”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- limo
limo
81,126 corpus weight
- lulu
lulu
81,125 corpus weight
- lunchtime
lunchtime
81,124 corpus weight
- lux
lux
81,123 corpus weight
- mace
mace
81,122 corpus weight
- Maher
Maher
81,121 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “lux” 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 | lux |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lʌks/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #18,878 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “lux”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for lux is neighbouring look-alikes ("LV", "lx", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /lʌks/. Frequency #18,878 among 2,297 “L” headwords. Gloss: "In the International System of Units, the derived unit of illuminance or illumination; one lumen per square metre. Symbol: lx".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for lux, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "LV", "lx", "LZ", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Latin lūx (“light”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“white; light; bright”). Cognates include Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white, blank, light, bright, clear”), Ancient Greek λύκη (lúkē, “light, morning twilight”), Sanskrit रोचते (rocate),… The correct English form is lux, spelled L-U-X.
Definition
- 1In the International System of Units, the derived unit of illuminance or illumination; one lumen per square metre. Symbol: lx
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lux appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Some volunteers slept in ambient light of about 100 lux and some in only 3 lux, which is close to total darkness.
For quotations using this term, see Citations:lux.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin lūx (“light”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“white; light; bright”). Cognates include Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white, blank, light, bright, clear”), Ancient Greek λύκη (lúkē, “light, morning twilight”), Sanskrit रोचते (rocate), Middle Persian 𐭩𐭥𐭬 (rōz, “day”) and Old English lēoht (noun) (English light).
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "lux", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).