lukevslureTell them apart

Quick tell: luke is a preposition, lure is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“luke” is a preposition and “lure” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,732
“luke” frequency rank
#48,019
“lure” frequency rank
56751
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature luke lure
Definition Sans considération pour, sans tenir compte de. Leurre.

Where the eye mixes luke and lure

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

4 ch
luke
4 ch
lure

Look-alike desk: luke vs lure

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: luke is \ˈlukɛ\ while lure is \lʊər\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - k in “luke” becomes r in “lure”, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56751, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

luke is recorded at frequency rank #8,732, classified as aprep, pronounced \ˈlukɛ\. lure is at rank #48,019, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lʊər\.

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 56751, this pair ranks #119,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of luke vs lure

Shared letters: elu. Private to "luke": k. Private to "lure": r.

"luke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "lure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • luke ← lkue · lluke · luek · lukke · ulke
  • lure ← llure · lrue · lurre · ulre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "luke" for "lure" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "luke" is a preposition and "lure" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "luke" or "lure"?
"luke" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,732 in our French list, against #48,019 for "lure". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "luke" and "lure" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "luke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #119,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "luke" and "lure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lar vs lure". 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 #119,145 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