l vs ls, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“l” is a pronoun and “ls” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,147
“l” frequency rank: #27,923
“ls” frequency rank: 29070
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	l	ls
Definition	o, pronome demonstrativo	os, artigo definido masculino plural:

Letter map: l vs ls

Shared letters muted; letters that set l and ls apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

1 ch

2 ch

Grammar separator: l vs ls

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: l is apronoun and lsanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “l” sits inside “ls”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29070, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

l is recorded at frequency rank #1,147, classified as apron. ls is at rank #27,923, tagged as anarticle.

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 29070, this pair ranks #39,649 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of l vs ls

Shared letters: l. Private to "l": -. Private to "ls": s.

"l" · 1 letters · shape C · "ls" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "l" and "ls" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "l" is a pronoun and "ls" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "l" or "ls" show up more?

"l" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,147 in our Portuguese list, against #27,923 for "ls". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "l" vs "ls" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "l" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #39,649 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"l" and "ls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lise vs ls". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #39,649 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.