lhe vs ló, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“lhe” is a pronoun and “ló” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#322
“lhe” frequency rank: #37,407
“ló” frequency rank: 37729
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	lhe	ló
Definition	pronome pessoal dativo, de dois gêneros, da terceira pessoa do singular (ele, ela, você)	lado de uma embarcação que fica exposto ao vento

Where the eye mixes lhe and ló

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

lhe

2 ch

ló

Why the eye confuses lhe with ló

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: lhe is /ʎɨ/ while ló is /ˈlɔ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37729, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lhe is recorded at frequency rank #322, classified as apron, pronounced /ʎɨ/. ló is at rank #37,407, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɔ/.

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 37729, this pair ranks #28,840 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lhe vs ló

Shared letters: l. Private to "lhe": eh. Private to "ló": ó.

"lhe" · 3 letters · shape CCV · "ló" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "lhe" and "ló" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Frequency check: "lhe" vs "ló" - which ranks higher?

"lhe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #322 in our Portuguese list, against #37,407 for "ló". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "lhe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ló" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #28,840 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"lhe" and "ló" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ló vs loch". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #28,840 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.