ISISvsitsTell them apart

Quick tell: ISIS is a abbrev, its is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#7,491
“ISIS” frequency rank
#9,388
“its” frequency rank
16879
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ISIS its
Definition Abkürzung für die Terrorgruppe „Islamischer Staat im Irak und Syrien“ bzw. „Islamischer Staat im Irak und in Syrien“ bzw. „Islamischer Staat im Irak und in (Groß-)Syrien“ sein

Letter map: ISIS vs its

Shared letters muted; letters that set ISIS and its apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
ISIS
3 ch
its

Part-of-speech tell for ISIS / its

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ISIS is anabbrev and itsapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16879, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ISIS is recorded at frequency rank #7,491, classified as anabbrev. its is at rank #9,388, tagged as apron, pronounced [ɪts].

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 16879, this pair ranks #1,932,245 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ISIS vs its

Shared letters: is. Private to "ISIS": -. Private to "its": t.

"ISIS" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "its" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ISISiiss · isiss · issi · issis · siis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ISIS" for "its" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ISIS" is an abbrev and "its" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ISIS" or "its"?
"ISIS" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,491 in our German list, against #9,388 for "its". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "ISIS" and "its". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ISIS" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "its" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,932,245 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ISIS" and "its" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "IMs vs its". 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 #1,932,245 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