IMO vs is, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“IMO” is a name and “is” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,045
“IMO” frequency rank: #8
“is” frequency rank: 11053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	IMO	is
Definition	Initialism of International Maritime Organization.	third-person singular simple present indicative of be

Letter map: IMO vs is

Shared letters muted; letters that set IMO and is apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

IMO

2 ch

Grammar separator: IMO vs is

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: IMO is aname and isaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

IMO is recorded at frequency rank #11,045, classified as aname. is is at rank #8, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɪz/.

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 11053, this pair ranks #489,127 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of IMO vs is

Shared letters: i. Private to "IMO": mo. Private to "is": s.

"IMO" · 3 letters · shape VCV · "is" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "IMO" and "is" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "IMO" is a name and "is" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "IMO" or "is"?

"is" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8 in our English list, against #11,045 for "IMO". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "IMO" and "is".

Full dictionary entry for "IMO" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "is" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #489,127 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"IMO" and "is" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "IMO vs ith". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #489,127 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.