lockvsluckWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“lock” and “luck” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#34,658
“lock” frequency rank
#38,798
“luck” frequency rank
73456
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lock luck
Definition Cerradura. Suerte

Where the eye mixes lock and luck

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. lock and luck follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
lock
4 ch
luck

Look-alike desk: lock vs luck

A purely visual mix-up. lock (/lɒk/) and luck (/lʌk/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - o in “lock” becomes u in “luck”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lock is recorded at frequency rank #34,658, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɒk/. luck is at rank #38,798, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lʌk/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 73456, this pair ranks #23,259 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lock vs luck

Shared letters: ckl. Private to "lock": o. Private to "luck": u.

"lock" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "luck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lock ← lcok · llock · locck · lockk · lokc · olck
  • luck ← lcuk · lluck · lucck · luckk · lukc · ulck

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lock" and "luck" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/lɒk/ versus /lʌk/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "lock" or "luck"?
"lock" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,658 in our Spanish list, against #38,798 for "luck". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lock" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "luck" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,259 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lock" and "luck" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lac vs luck". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #23,259 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list