lentevsletterWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,881
“lente” frequency rank
#28,646
“letter” frequency rank
38527
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lente letter
Definition professor universitário carta

Letter map: lente vs letter

Shared letters muted; letters that set lente and letter apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
lente
6 ch
letter

Corpus notes: lente and letter

lente and letter are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38527, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lente is recorded at frequency rank #9,881, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈlẽ.tɨ/. letter is at rank #28,646, tagged as anoun.

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 38527, this pair ranks #27,915 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lente vs letter

Shared letters: elt. Private to "lente": n. Private to "letter": r.

"lente" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "letter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lenteelnte · lenet · lennte · lentte · letne · llente · lnete
  • lettereltter · leter · letetr · letterr · lettre · lletter · lteter

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lente" and "letter" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "lente" vs "letter" - which ranks higher?
"lente" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,881 in our Portuguese list, against #28,646 for "letter". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "lente" and "letter".

  • Full dictionary entry for "lente" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "letter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,915 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lente" and "letter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "later vs letter". 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 #27,915 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