late vs luto, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#12,276
“late” frequency rank: #5,112
“luto” frequency rank: 17388
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	late	luto
Definition	terceira pessoa do presente do indicativo do verbo latir	dor causada pela morte de alguém ou por grande calamidade

Letter map: late vs luto

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

4 ch

late

4 ch

luto

Role in the sentence - late and luto

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: late is averb and lutoanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17388, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

late is recorded at frequency rank #12,276, classified as averb. luto is at rank #5,112, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlu.tu/.

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 17388, this pair ranks #53,867 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of late vs luto

Shared letters: lt. Private to "late": ae. Private to "luto": ou.

"late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "luto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

late ← alte · laet · latte · llate · ltae
luto ← lluto · ltuo · luot · lutto · ulto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "late" for "luto" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "late" is a verb and "luto" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "late" or "luto" show up more?

"luto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,112 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.

Useful next steps

Pair "late" vs "luto" 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 "luto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #53,867 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"late" and "luto" 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 #53,867 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.