ls vs lui, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#27,923
“ls” frequency rank: #34,790
“lui” frequency rank: 62713
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ls	lui
Definition	os, artigo definido masculino plural:	alugar (tomar de aluguel)

Letter map: ls vs lui

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

2 ch

3 ch

lui

Part-of-speech tell for ls / lui

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ls is anarticle and luiaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62713, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ls is recorded at frequency rank #27,923, classified as anarticle. lui is at rank #34,790, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈlu.i/..

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 62713, this pair ranks #6,524 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ls vs lui

Shared letters: l. Private to "ls": s. Private to "lui": iu.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ls" or "lui" show up more?

"ls" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,923 in our Portuguese list, against #34,790 for "lui". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "ls" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #6,524 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ls" and "lui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ludo vs lui". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #6,524 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.