IkevsirkedConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#16,730
“Ike” frequency rank
#39,371
“irked” frequency rank
56101
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Ike irked
Definition A diminutive of the male given name Isaac. Annoyed.

Letter map: Ike vs irked

Shared letters muted; letters that set Ike and irked apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Ike runs 3 letters (VCV) against irked's 5 (VCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Ike
5 ch
irked

Part-of-speech tell for Ike / irked

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Ike is aname and irkedanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56101, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Ike is recorded at frequency rank #16,730, classified as aname, pronounced /aɪk/. irked is at rank #39,371, tagged as anadj.

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 56101, this pair ranks #128,720 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Ike vs irked

Shared letters: eik. Private to "Ike": -. Private to "irked": dr.

"Ike" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "irked" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • irked ← ikred · irekd · irkde · irkedd · irkked · irrked · riked

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Ike" and "irked" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Ike" is a name and "irked" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Ike" or "irked" show up more?
"Ike" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,730 in our English list, against #39,371 for "irked". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "Ike" vs "irked" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Ike" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "irked" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #128,720 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Ike" and "irked" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "IED vs irked". 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 #128,720 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