is vs ISSN, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#478
“is” frequency rank: #41,924
“ISSN” frequency rank: 42402
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	is	ISSN
Definition	[1] umgangssprachlich, dialektal, norddeutsch: 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens des Verbs sein	International Standard Serial Number, wörtlich Internationale Standardseriennummer, eine international eingeführte Nummer zur Identifikation periodischer Sammelwerke (Schriftenreihen, Zeitschriften, Zeitungen etc.)

Letter map: is vs ISSN

Shared letters muted; letters that set is and ISSN apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

4 ch

ISSN

Part-of-speech tell for is / ISSN

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: is is averb and ISSNanabbrev. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “is” sits inside “ISSN”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42402, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

is is recorded at frequency rank #478, classified as averb, pronounced [ɪs]. ISSN is at rank #41,924, 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 42402, this pair ranks #1,450,450 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of is vs ISSN

Shared letters: is. Private to "is": -. Private to "ISSN": n.

"is" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ISSN" · 4 letters · shape VCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

ISSN ← isn · isns · issnn · ißn · sisn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "is" for "ISSN" ever safe?

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

In ordinary German text, does "is" or "ISSN" show up more?

"is" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #478 in our German list, against #41,924 for "ISSN". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "is" and "ISSN".

Full dictionary entry for "is" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ISSN" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,450,450 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"is" and "ISSN" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "IMs vs ISSN". 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 #1,450,450 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.