ies vs its, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ies” is a noun and “its” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,988
“ies” frequency rank: #75
“its” frequency rank: 46063
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ies	its
Definition	plural of i, the name of the letter I.	Belonging to it.

Letter map: ies vs its

Shared letters muted; letters that set ies and its apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

ies

3 ch

its

Grammar separator: ies vs its

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ies is anoun and itsadeterminer. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “ies” becomes t in “its”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46063, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ies is recorded at frequency rank #45,988, classified as anoun. its is at rank #75, tagged as adet, pronounced /ɪts/.

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 46063, this pair ranks #215,351 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ies vs its

Shared letters: is. Private to "ies": e. Private to "its": t.

"ies" · 3 letters · shape VVC · "its" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ies" for "its" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "ies" vs "its" - which ranks higher?

"its" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #75 in our English list, against #45,988 for "ies". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ies" and "its".

Full dictionary entry for "ies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "its" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #215,351 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ies" and "its" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ies vs ith". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #215,351 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.