lestevsletoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,051
“leste” frequency rank
#33,915
“leto” frequency rank
34966
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature leste leto
Definition um dos pontos cardeais, oposto ao oeste, equivalente ao lado direito verão:

Letter map: leste vs leto

Shared letters muted; letters that set leste and leto apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. leste runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against leto's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
leste
4 ch
leto

Pair insight - leste / leto

leste and leto 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 34966, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

leste is recorded at frequency rank #1,051, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɛʃ.tɨ/. leto is at rank #33,915, 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 34966, this pair ranks #32,177 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of leste vs leto

Shared letters: elt. Private to "leste": s. Private to "leto": o.

"leste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "leto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • leste ← elste · leset · lesste · lestte · letse · lleste · lsete
  • leto ← elto · leot · letto · lleto · lteo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "leste" and "leto" mean the same thing in a sentence?
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.
Which is more common, "leste" or "leto"?
"leste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,051 in our Portuguese list, against #33,915 for "leto". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "leste" and "leto". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "leste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "leto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,177 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "leste" and "leto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "leto vs ludo". 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 #32,177 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