incitementvsincrementConfusable pair

Which to use

“incitement” and “increment” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#34,537
“incitement” frequency rank
#30,457
“increment” frequency rank
64994
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature incitement increment
Definition A call to act; encouragement to act, often in an illegal way. The action of increasing or becoming greater.

Where the eye mixes incitement and increment

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence.

10 ch
incitement
9 ch
increment

Look-alike desk: incitement vs increment

A purely visual mix-up. incitement (/ɪnˈsaɪt.mənt/) and increment (/ˈɪŋkɹɪmn̩t/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64994, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

incitement is recorded at frequency rank #34,537, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɪnˈsaɪt.mənt/. increment is at rank #30,457, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɪŋkɹɪmn̩t/.

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 64994, this pair ranks #74,945 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of incitement vs increment

Shared letters: ceimnt. Private to "incitement": -. Private to "increment": r.

"incitement" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVCVCC  ·  "increment" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • incitementicnitement · inccitement · incietment · inciteemnt · incitemennt · incitementt · incitemetn · incitemment
  • incrementicnrement · inccrement · incerment · increemnt · incremennt · incrementt · incremetn · incremment

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "incitement" for "increment" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɪnˈsaɪt.mənt/ versus /ˈɪŋkɹɪmn̩t/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "incitement" or "increment" show up more?
"increment" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,457 in our English list, against #34,537 for "incitement". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "incitement" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "increment" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,945 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "incitement" and "increment" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "incitement vs inclement". 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 #74,945 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