IR vs irre, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#14,329
“IR” frequency rank: #4,524
“irre” frequency rank: 18853
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	IR	irre
Definition	infrarot, Infrarot	an einer Störung oder Fehlleistung des Geistes- und Seelenlebens (= Geisteskrankheit) leidend

Letter map: IR vs irre

Shared letters muted; letters that set IR and irre apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

4 ch

irre

Role in the sentence - IR and irre

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: IR is anabbrev and irreanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “IR” sits inside “irre”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18853, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

IR is recorded at frequency rank #14,329, classified as anabbrev. irre is at rank #4,524, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈɪʁə].

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 18853, this pair ranks #1,914,261 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of IR vs irre

Shared letters: ir. Private to "IR": -. Private to "irre": e.

"IR" · 2 letters · shape VC · "irre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

irre ← irer · rire

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

In ordinary German text, does "IR" or "irre" show up more?

"irre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,524 in our German list, against #14,329 for "IR". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "IR" vs "irre" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "IR" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "irre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,914,261 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"IR" and "irre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "IMs vs IR". 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 #1,914,261 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.