ick vs id, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ick” is a pronoun and “id” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,183
“ick” frequency rank: #5,272
“id” frequency rank: 21455
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ick	id
Definition	unbetontes „ich“	[1] Nominativ Singular Neutrum des Pronomens is

Letter map: ick vs id

Shared letters muted; letters that set ick and id apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

ick

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for ick / id

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ick is apronoun and idanunknown. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21455, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ick is recorded at frequency rank #16,183, classified as apron, pronounced [ɪk]. id is at rank #5,272, tagged as anunknown, pronounced […].

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 21455, this pair ranks #1,886,064 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ick vs id

Shared letters: i. Private to "ick": ck. Private to "id": d.

"ick" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "id" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ick" for "id" ever safe?

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

In ordinary German text, does "ick" or "id" show up more?

"id" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,272 in our German list, against #16,183 for "ick". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "ick" vs "id" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "ick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "id" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,886,064 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ick" and "id" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ick vs IMs". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,886,064 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.