le vs ló, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#2,016
“le” frequency rank: #37,407
“ló” frequency rank: 39423
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	le	ló
Definition	partícula gramatical usada antes de substantivos ou palavras substantivadas; por geral indica uma coisa em particular	lado de uma embarcação que fica exposto ao vento

Letter map: le vs ló

Shared letters muted; letters that set le and ló apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

ló

Grammar separator: le vs ló

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: le is anarticle and lóanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “le” becomes ó in “ló”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39423, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

le is recorded at frequency rank #2,016, classified as anarticle. ló is at rank #37,407, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɔ/.

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 39423, this pair ranks #26,827 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of le vs ló

Shared letters: l. Private to "le": e. Private to "ló": ó.

"le" · 2 letters · shape CV · "ló" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "le" and "ló" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "le" is an article and "ló" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "le" vs "ló" - which ranks higher?

"le" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,016 in our Portuguese list, against #37,407 for "ló". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "le" and "ló".

Full dictionary entry for "le" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ló" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #26,827 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"le" and "ló" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ló vs loch". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #26,827 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.