los vs ls, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“los” is a pronoun and “ls” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#394
“los” frequency rank: #27,923
“ls” frequency rank: 28317
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	los	ls
Definition	os, pronome demonstrativo	os, artigo definido masculino plural:

Letter map: los vs ls

Shared letters muted; letters that set los and ls apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

los

2 ch

Role in the sentence - los and ls

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: los is apronoun and lsanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28317, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

los is recorded at frequency rank #394, classified as apron. ls is at rank #27,923, tagged as anarticle.

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 28317, this pair ranks #40,499 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of los vs ls

Shared letters: ls. Private to "los": o. Private to "ls": -.

"los" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "ls" · 2 letters · shape CC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "los" and "ls" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "los" is a pronoun and "ls" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "los" vs "ls" - which ranks higher?

"los" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #394 in our Portuguese list, against #27,923 for "ls". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "los" and "ls".

Full dictionary entry for "los" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #40,499 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"los" and "ls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lise vs ls". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #40,499 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.