icedvsicesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: iced is a adjective, ices is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“iced” is an adjective and “ices” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,832
“iced” frequency rank
#48,810
“ices” frequency rank
64642
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature iced ices
Definition With ice added. plural of ice

Where the eye mixes iced and ices

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. iced and ices follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
iced
4 ch
ices

Look-alike desk: iced vs ices

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: iced is /ˈaɪst/ while ices is /ˈaɪsɪz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - d in “iced” becomes s in “ices”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64642, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

iced is recorded at frequency rank #15,832, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈaɪst/. ices is at rank #48,810, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈaɪsɪz/.

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 64642, this pair ranks #76,698 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of iced vs ices

Shared letters: cei. Private to "iced": d. Private to "ices": s.

"iced" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "ices" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • iced ← cied · icced · icde · icedd · iecd
  • ices ← cies · icces · icess · icse · iecs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "iced" for "ices" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "iced" is an adjective and "ices" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "iced" or "ices" show up more?
"iced" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,832 in our English list, against #48,810 for "ices". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "iced" and "ices" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "iced" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ices" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #76,698 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "iced" and "ices" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ices vs ICJ". 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 #76,698 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list