Which to use
“late” is a verb and “lau” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #12,276
- “late” frequency rank
- #21,230
- “lau” frequency rank
- 33506
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | late | lau |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | terceira pessoa do presente do indicativo do verbo latir | morno, tépido: |
Letter map: late vs lau
Shared letters muted; letters that set late and lau apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for late / lau
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: late is averb and lauanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
late is recorded at frequency rank #12,276, classified as averb. lau is at rank #21,230, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈlaʊ̯/.
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 33506, this pair ranks #33,999 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of late vs lau
Shared letters: al. Private to "late": et. Private to "lau": u.
"late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "lau" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- late ← alte · laet · latte · llate · ltae
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "late" and "lau" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "late" or "lau"?
What to do next
Pair "late" vs "lau" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "late" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "lau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #33,999 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "late" and "lau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "laca vs lau". 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 #33,999 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.