icesvsipsTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#48,810
“ices” frequency rank
#20,676
“ips” frequency rank
69486
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ices ips
Definition plural of ice Initialism of inch(es) per second.

Letter map: ices vs ips

Shared letters muted; letters that set ices and ips apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
ices
3 ch
ips

Part-of-speech tell for ices / ips

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ices is anoun and ipsasymbol. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69486, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ices is recorded at frequency rank #48,810, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈaɪsɪz/. ips is at rank #20,676, tagged as asymbol.

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 69486, this pair ranks #54,361 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ices vs ips

Shared letters: is. Private to "ices": ce. Private to "ips": p.

"ices" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "ips" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • icescies · icces · icess · icse · iecs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ices" for "ips" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ices" is a noun and "ips" a symbol, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "ices" or "ips" show up more?
"ips" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,676 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.

What to do next

You've compared "ices" and "ips". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ices" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ips" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #54,361 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ices" and "ips" 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 #54,361 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