lew vs lui, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“lew” is a noun and “lui” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,890
“lew” frequency rank: #34,790
“lui” frequency rank: 72680
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	lew	lui
Definition	leão	alugar (tomar de aluguel)

Where the eye mixes lew and lui

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. lew (CVC) and lui (CVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch

lew

3 ch

lui

Why the eye confuses lew with lui

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lew is /lɛf/ while lui is /ˈlu.i/.. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72680, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lew is recorded at frequency rank #37,890, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɛf/. lui is at rank #34,790, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈlu.i/..

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 72680, this pair ranks #2,984 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of lew vs lui

Shared letters: l. Private to "lew": ew. Private to "lui": iu.

"lew" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "lui" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lew" and "lui" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lew" is a noun and "lui" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "lew" or "lui" show up more?

"lui" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,790 in our Portuguese list, against #37,890 for "lew". 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 "lew" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #2,984 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"lew" and "lui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lew vs Lied". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #2,984 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.