IC vs is, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“IC” is a noun and “is” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,931
“IC” frequency rank: #8
“is” frequency rank: 13939
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	IC	is
Definition	Initialism of independent contractor.	third-person singular simple present indicative of be

Letter map: IC vs is

Shared letters muted; letters that set IC and is apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for IC / is

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: IC is anoun and isaverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “IC” becomes s in “is”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13939, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

IC is recorded at frequency rank #13,931, classified as anoun. is is at rank #8, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɪz/.

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 13939, this pair ranks #472,979 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of IC vs is

Shared letters: i. Private to "IC": c. Private to "is": s.

"IC" · 2 letters · shape VC · "is" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "IC" and "is" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "IC" or "is"?

"is" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8 in our English list, against #13,931 for "IC". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "IC" vs "is" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "IC" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "is" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #472,979 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"IC" and "is" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "IC vs ith". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #472,979 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.