icesvsIsisWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#48,810
“ices” frequency rank
#4,536
“Isis” frequency rank
53346
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ices Isis
Definition plural of ice An ancient Egyptian goddess, the wife of Osiris and mother of Horus, worshiped as the ideal mother and wife and as the matron of nature and magic; also worshiped by (some) Greeks during the Hellenistic period and featured in Greek mythology, and by Romans involved in what was categorized as the Cult of Isis.

Where the eye mixes ices and Isis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
ices
4 ch
Isis

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ices is /ˈaɪsɪz/ while Isis is /ˈaɪ.sɪs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53346, 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/. Isis is at rank #4,536, tagged as aname, pronounced /ˈaɪ.sɪs/.

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 53346, this pair ranks #149,750 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ices vs Isis

Shared letters: is. Private to "ices": ce. Private to "Isis": -.

"ices" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "Isis" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • icescies · icces · icess · icse · iecs
  • Isisiiss · isiss · issi · issis · siis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ices" and "Isis" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ices" is a noun and "Isis" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ices" or "Isis"?
"Isis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,536 in our English list, against #48,810 for "ices". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list