Are or is?
Both are forms of be: are is the second-person singular simple present of be, and is the third-person singular simple present indicative of be. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) is is about 2.1 times as common as are.
What is the difference between are and is?
| are | is | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | verb, pronoun, noun, prefix |
| Meaning | colloquialUsed in phrases with existential there (also here and where) when the semantic subject is plural | |
| Example | Mary, where are you going? | He is a doctor |
| Pronunciation | /ɛə/ /ɛː/ /ɛəɹ/ | /ɪz/ /ɘz/ |
| In writing | 5,495 times per million words | 11,749 times per million words |
Sources: are and is in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of are and is
are
- 1
Initialism of advance reader’s edition
is
- 1
colloquialUsed in phrases with existential there (also here and where) when the semantic subject is plural
There is three of them there
- 2
Alternative spelling of us (“me”)
- 3
Initialism of International Sign
- 4
Alternative form of iso-, before a vowel
- 5
Abbreviation of Islands (also Is.)
- 6
Pronunciation spelling of his
- 7
Abbreviation of Islands (also Is.)
- 8
Alternative letter-case form of is. (“abbreviation of Islands”)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, are or is?
are appears 5,495 times per million words; is 11,749 times per million words.
are 5,495 times per million wordsis 11,749 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search are vs is?
“are vs is” is searched about 3,600 times a month on Google and 100 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“is vs are”, “are or is”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.