lamavslateWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: lama is a noun, late is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lama” is a noun and “late” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,317
“lama” frequency rank
#12,276
“late” frequency rank
17593
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lama late
Definition mistura heterogênea de terra e água terceira pessoa do presente do indicativo do verbo latir

Letter map: lama vs late

Shared letters muted; letters that set lama and late apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
lama
4 ch
late

Part-of-speech tell for lama / late

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lama is anoun and lateaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17593, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lama is recorded at frequency rank #5,317, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɐ.mɐ/. late is at rank #12,276, tagged as averb.

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 17593, this pair ranks #53,620 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lama vs late

Shared letters: al. Private to "lama": m. Private to "late": et.

"lama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lamalaam · lamma · llama · lmaa
  • latealte · laet · latte · llate · ltae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lama" for "late" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lama" is a noun and "late" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "lama" or "late" show up more?
"lama" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,317 in our Portuguese list, against #12,276 for "late". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lama" and "late".

  • Full dictionary entry for "lama" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "late" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,620 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lama" and "late" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laca vs late". 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 #53,620 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