legvslipWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#33,059
“leg” frequency rank
#29,031
“lip” frequency rank
62090
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leg lip
Definition perna lábio

Where the eye mixes leg and lip

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. leg and lip follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
leg
3 ch
lip

Look-alike desk: leg vs lip

A purely visual mix-up. leg (/lɛɡ/) and lip (/lɪp/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leg is recorded at frequency rank #33,059, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɛɡ/. lip is at rank #29,031, tagged as anoun, pronounced /lɪp/.

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 62090, this pair ranks #6,835 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of leg vs lip

Shared letters: l. Private to "leg": eg. Private to "lip": ip.

"leg" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "lip" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "leg" and "lip" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/lɛɡ/ versus /lɪp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "leg" or "lip"?
"lip" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,031 in our Portuguese list, against #33,059 for "leg". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leg" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lip" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #6,835 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leg" and "lip" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leg vs Lied". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #6,835 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