lockvslookWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#22,711
“lock” frequency rank
#5,222
“look” frequency rank
27933
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lock look
Definition fechadura estilo de moda

Letter map: lock vs look

Shared letters muted; letters that set lock and look apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
lock
4 ch
look

Pair insight - lock / look

lock and look 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 a single letter - c in “lock” becomes o in “look”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27933, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lock is recorded at frequency rank #22,711, classified as anoun, pronounced /lɒk/. look is at rank #5,222, 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 27933, this pair ranks #40,978 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lock vs look

Shared letters: klo. Private to "lock": c. Private to "look": -.

"lock" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "look" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • locklcok · llock · locck · lockk · lokc · olck
  • lookllook · lok · loko · lookk · olok

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "lock" and "look" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by a single letter - c in “lock” becomes o in “look”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "lock" vs "look" - which ranks higher?
"look" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,222 in our Portuguese list, against #22,711 for "lock". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "lock" and "look". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lock" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "look" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,978 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lock" and "look" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "loch vs lock". 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 #40,978 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