id vs is, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#5,272
“id” frequency rank: #478
“is” frequency rank: 5750
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	id	is
Definition	[1] Nominativ Singular Neutrum des Pronomens is	[1] umgangssprachlich, dialektal, norddeutsch: 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens des Verbs sein

Letter map: id vs is

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

2 ch

Role in the sentence - id and is

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: id is anunknown and isaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “id” becomes s in “is”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5750, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

id is recorded at frequency rank #5,272, classified as anunknown, pronounced […]. is is at rank #478, tagged as averb, pronounced [ɪs].

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 5750, this pair ranks #1,993,847 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of id vs is

Shared letters: i. Private to "id": d. Private to "is": s.

"id" · 2 letters · shape VC · "is" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "id" and "is" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "id" or "is"?

"is" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #478 in our German list, against #5,272 for "id". 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 "id" and "is".

Full dictionary entry for "id" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "is" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,993,847 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"id" and "is" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "id vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,993,847 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.