lóvsloseWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ló is a noun, lose is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#37,407
“ló” frequency rank
#27,921
“lose” frequency rank
65328
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ló lose
Definition lado de uma embarcação que fica exposto ao vento frouxo

Letter map: ló vs lose

Shared letters muted; letters that set ló and lose apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. ló runs 2 letters (CV) against lose's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

2 ch
ló
4 ch
lose

Role in the sentence - ló and lose

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ló is anoun and loseanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65328, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ló is recorded at frequency rank #37,407, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɔ/. lose is at rank #27,921, tagged as anadj.

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 65328, this pair ranks #5,436 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ló vs lose

Shared letters: l. Private to "ló": ó. Private to "lose": eos.

"ló" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "lose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lose ← llose · loes · losse · lsoe · olse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ló" and "lose" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ló" is a noun and "lose" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ló" or "lose" show up more?
"lose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,921 in our Portuguese list, against #37,407 for "ló". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "ló" vs "lose" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ló" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lose" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,436 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ló" and "lose" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ló vs loch". 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 #5,436 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