levsleoTell them apart

Quick tell: le is a article, leo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“le” is an article and “leo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,016
“le” frequency rank
#4,079
“leo” frequency rank
6095
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature le leo
Definition partícula gramatical usada antes de substantivos ou palavras substantivadas; por geral indica uma coisa em particular leão

Letter map: le vs leo

Shared letters muted; letters that set le and leo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
le
3 ch
leo

Part-of-speech tell for le / leo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: le is anarticle and leoanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “le” sits inside “leo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6095, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

le is recorded at frequency rank #2,016, classified as anarticle. leo is at rank #4,079, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈle.oː/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 6095, this pair ranks #68,397 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of le vs leo

Shared letters: el. Private to "le": -. Private to "leo": o.

"le" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "leo" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "le" for "leo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "le" is an article and "leo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "le" vs "leo" - which ranks higher?
"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,016 in our Portuguese list, against #4,079 for "leo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "le" and "leo". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "le" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,397 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "le" and "leo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leo vs ludo". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #68,397 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