ihm vs IR, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ihm” is a pronoun and “IR” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#137
“ihm” frequency rank: #14,329
“IR” frequency rank: 14466
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ihm	IR
Definition	Personalpronomen 3. Person Maskulinum Singular Dativ	infrarot, Infrarot

Letter map: ihm vs IR

Shared letters muted; letters that set ihm and IR apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

ihm

2 ch

Role in the sentence - ihm and IR

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ihm is apronoun and IRanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14466, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ihm is recorded at frequency rank #137, classified as apron, pronounced [iːm]. IR is at rank #14,329, tagged as anabbrev.

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 14466, this pair ranks #1,951,032 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ihm vs IR

Shared letters: i. Private to "ihm": hm. Private to "IR": r.

"ihm" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "IR" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ihm" and "IR" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "ihm" or "IR"?

"ihm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #137 in our German list, against #14,329 for "IR". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ihm" and "IR".

Full dictionary entry for "ihm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "IR" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,951,032 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ihm" and "IR" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "IMs vs IR". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,951,032 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.