ICJvsicyConfusable pair

Quick tell: ICJ is a name, icy is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ICJ” is a name and “icy” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,411
“ICJ” frequency rank
#14,141
“icy” frequency rank
63552
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ICJ icy
Definition Initialism of International Court of Justice. Pertaining to, resembling, or abounding in ice; cold; frosty.

Letter map: ICJ vs icy

Shared letters muted; letters that set ICJ and icy apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ICJ (VCC) and icy (VCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

3 ch
ICJ
3 ch
icy

Role in the sentence - ICJ and icy

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ICJ is aname and icyanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - j in “ICJ” becomes y in “icy”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63552, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ICJ is recorded at frequency rank #49,411, classified as aname. icy is at rank #14,141, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈaɪsi/.

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 63552, this pair ranks #82,337 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ICJ vs icy

Shared letters: ci. Private to "ICJ": j. Private to "icy": y.

"ICJ" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "icy" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ICJ" for "icy" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ICJ" is a name and "icy" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ICJ" or "icy"?
"icy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,141 in our English list, against #49,411 for "ICJ". 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 "ICJ" and "icy". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ICJ" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "icy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #82,337 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ICJ" and "icy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ICJ vs ith". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #82,337 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