Which to use
“lose” is a noun and “lost” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #34,601
- “lose” frequency rank
- #15,430
- “lost” frequency rank
- 50031
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | lose | lost |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Variante de lauze. | Ignorant. |
Letter map: lose vs lost
Shared letters muted; letters that set lose and lost apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Part-of-speech tell for lose / lost
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lose is anoun and lostanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “lose” becomes t in “lost”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50031, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
lose is recorded at frequency rank #34,601, classified as anoun. lost is at rank #15,430, tagged as anadj, pronounced \lɔst\.
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 50031, this pair ranks #165,825 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of lose vs lost
Shared letters: los. Private to "lose": e. Private to "lost": t.
"lose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "lost" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "lose" and "lost" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "lose" vs "lost" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pair "lose" vs "lost" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "lose" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lost" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #165,825 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "lose" and "lost" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lobo vs lose". 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 #165,825 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.