latevslothWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: late is a noun, loth is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“late” is a noun and “loth” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,229
“late” frequency rank
#45,714
“loth” frequency rank
73943
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature late loth
Definition Latte. Variante orthographique de loath.

Letter map: late vs loth

Shared letters muted; letters that set late and loth apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. late (CVCV) and loth (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
late
4 ch
loth

Grammar separator: late vs loth

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: late is anoun and lothanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73943, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

late is recorded at frequency rank #28,229, classified as anoun, pronounced \lat\. loth is at rank #45,714, tagged as anadj.

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 73943, this pair ranks #38,803 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of late vs loth

Shared letters: lt. Private to "late": ae. Private to "loth": ho.

"late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "loth" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • late ← alte · laet · llate · ltae
  • loth ← lloth · loht · lothh · lotth · ltoh · olth

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "late" and "loth" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "late" is a noun and "loth" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "late" vs "loth" - which ranks higher?
"late" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,229 in our French list, against #45,714 for "loth". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "late" vs "loth" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "late" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "loth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,803 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "late" and "loth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobo vs loth". 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 #38,803 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list