IconvsihnWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Icon is a noun, ihn is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Icon” is a noun and “ihn” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,993
“Icon” frequency rank
#140
“ihn” frequency rank
24133
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Icon ihn
Definition kleine Grafik für Programme oder Hyperlinks Personalpronomen 3. Person Maskulinum Singular Akkusativ

Where the eye mixes Icon and ihn

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Icon
3 ch
ihn

Visual trap between Icon and ihn

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Icon is [ˈaɪ̯kn̩] while ihn is [iːn]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24133, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Icon is recorded at frequency rank #23,993, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈaɪ̯kn̩]. ihn is at rank #140, tagged as apron, pronounced [iːn].

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 24133, this pair ranks #1,851,917 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Icon vs ihn

Shared letters: in. Private to "Icon": co. Private to "ihn": h.

"Icon" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "ihn" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Iconcion · iccon · icno · iconn · iocn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Icon" for "ihn" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Icon" is a noun and "ihn" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Icon" or "ihn"?
"ihn" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #140 in our German list, against #23,993 for "Icon". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Icon" and "ihn" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Icon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ihn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,851,917 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Icon" and "ihn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Icon vs ICQ". 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 #1,851,917 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list