leavevslevyConfusable pair

Which to use

“leave” and “levy” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,377
“leave” frequency rank
#11,489
“levy” frequency rank
26866
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leave levy
Definition permissão para deixar o posto arrecadação

Where the eye mixes leave and levy

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
leave
4 ch
levy

Visual trap between leave and levy

A purely visual mix-up. leave (/liːv/) and levy (/ˈlɛ.vi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26866, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leave is recorded at frequency rank #15,377, classified as anoun, pronounced /liːv/. levy is at rank #11,489, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɛ.vi/.

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 26866, this pair ranks #42,210 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of leave vs levy

Shared letters: elv. Private to "leave": a. Private to "levy": y.

"leave" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "levy" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leaveelave · laeve · leaev · leavve · levae · lleave
  • levyelvy · levvy · levyy · leyv · llevy · lvey

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "leave" and "levy" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/liːv/ versus /ˈlɛ.vi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "leave" or "levy" show up more?
"levy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,489 in our Portuguese list, against #15,377 for "leave". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leave" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "levy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,210 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leave" and "levy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "least vs leave". 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 #42,210 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