Which to use
“ler” is a noun and “less” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #41,868
- “ler” frequency rank
- #30,688
- “less” frequency rank
- 72556
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ler | less |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pin. | Moins, en quantité. |
Letter map: ler vs less
Shared letters muted; letters that set ler and less apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ler runs 3 letters (CVC) against less's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for ler / less
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ler is anoun and lessanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ler is recorded at frequency rank #41,868, classified as anoun. less is at rank #30,688, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈlɛs\.
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 72556, this pair ranks #43,602 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ler vs less
Shared letters: el. Private to "ler": r. Private to "less": s.
"ler" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "less" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- less ← elss · lless · lses
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ler" and "less" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "ler" or "less"?
Useful next steps
You've compared "ler" and "less". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "ler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "less" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #43,602 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ler" and "less" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lep vs ler". 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 #43,602 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.