ia
[iːˈʔaː]
The verdict
“ia” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #26,056) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #26,056
- frequency rank, German
- 1,488
- “I” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - besonderer Tierlaut des Esels
Corpus desk
Index DE-ia · ia · German
ia · rank #26,056 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #26,056
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,488
- PHOTO-FINISH Hühnchen
Nearest frequency peer: Hühnchen (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “ia”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- hochwertiger
hochwertiger
73,948 corpus weight
- Hungersnot
Hungersnot
73,947 corpus weight
- Hühnchen
Hühnchen
73,946 corpus weight
- ia
ia
73,945 corpus weight
- Improvisati…
Improvisation
73,944 corpus weight
- interagieren
interagieren
73,943 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “ia” sits against the nearest ranked German headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ia |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | [iːˈʔaː] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #26,056 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Wo “ia” in der deutschen Häufigkeit sitzt
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ia is neighbouring look-alikes ("im", "is", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced [iːˈʔaː]. Frequency #26,056 among 1,488 “I” headwords. Gloss: "besonderer Tierlaut des Esels".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for ia, suggesting the orthography follows predictable German patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "im", "is", "ii", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct German form is ia, spelled I-A.
Definition
- 1besonderer Tierlaut des Esels
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "ia"?
What does "ia" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "ia"?
How do you pronounce "ia"?
What language does "ia" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
What to do next
You've looked up "ia". Here's where to go from here.
- "ia" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "im". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #26,056 among German headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more German words in the "I" letter cohort. I–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.