Which to use
“enquiry” and “inquiry” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,903
- “enquiry” frequency rank
- #4,681
- “inquiry” frequency rank
- 21584
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | enquiry | inquiry |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | British form of inquiry. | The act of inquiring; a seeking of information by asking questions; interrogation; a question or questioning. |
Same sound, different letters: enquiry vs inquiry
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. enquiry and inquiry follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Same sound, different spelling - enquiry / inquiry
This is the hard kind. enquiry and inquiry are pronounced identically (/ɪnˈkwaɪə.ɹi/) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - e in “enquiry” becomes i in “inquiry”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21584, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
enquiry is recorded at frequency rank #16,903, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɪnˈkwaɪə.ɹi/. inquiry is at rank #4,681, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɪnˈkwaɪəɹi/.
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 21584, this pair ranks #422,833 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of enquiry vs inquiry
Shared letters: inqruy. Private to "enquiry": e. Private to "inquiry": -.
"enquiry" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVCV · "inquiry" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "enquiry" and "inquiry" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "enquiry" vs "inquiry" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "enquiry" / "inquiry". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "enquiry" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "inquiry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #422,833 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "enquiry" and "inquiry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enquirer vs enquiry". 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 #422,833 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.