ls vs lua, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#27,923
“ls” frequency rank: #1,619
“lua” frequency rank: 29542
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ls	lua
Definition	os, artigo definido masculino plural:	satélite natural da Terra, que se destaca no céu durante a noite

Letter map: ls vs lua

Shared letters muted; letters that set ls and lua apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

lua

Part-of-speech tell for ls / lua

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ls is anarticle and luaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29542, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ls is recorded at frequency rank #27,923, classified as anarticle. lua is at rank #1,619, tagged as anoun, pronounced /'lua/.

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 29542, this pair ranks #39,052 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ls vs lua

Shared letters: l. Private to "ls": s. Private to "lua": au.

"ls" · 2 letters · shape CC · "lua" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ls" and "lua" be used interchangeably?

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

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

"lua" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,619 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

Pair "ls" vs "lua" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "ls" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lua" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #39,052 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ls" and "lua" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lise vs ls". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #39,052 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.