lacavsladyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“laca” and “lady” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#48,502
“laca” frequency rank
#3,418
“lady” frequency rank
51920
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature laca lady
Definition resina ou goma resinosa obtida de certas árvores no Oriente dama

Where the eye mixes laca and lady

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
laca
4 ch
lady

Look-alike desk: laca vs lady

A purely visual mix-up. laca (/ˈla.kɐ/) and lady (/ˈleɪdi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51920, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

laca is recorded at frequency rank #48,502, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈla.kɐ/. lady is at rank #3,418, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈleɪdi/.

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 51920, this pair ranks #13,189 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of laca vs lady

Shared letters: al. Private to "laca": c. Private to "lady": dy.

"laca" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "lady" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lacaalca · laac · lacca · lcaa · llaca
  • ladyaldy · laddy · ladyy · layd · lday · llady

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "laca" for "lady" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈla.kɐ/ versus /ˈleɪdi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "laca" or "lady"?
"lady" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,418 in our Portuguese list, against #48,502 for "laca". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "laca" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lady" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,189 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "laca" and "lady" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laca vs loch". 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 #13,189 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list