inclvsincurWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: incl is a preposition, incur is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“incl” is a preposition and “incur” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#21,828
“incl” frequency rank
#19,620
“incur” frequency rank
41448
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature incl incur
Definition Abbreviation of including. To bring upon oneself or expose oneself to, especially something inconvenient, harmful, or onerous; to become liable or subject to.

Letter map: incl vs incur

Shared letters muted; letters that set incl and incur apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. incl runs 4 letters (VCCC) against incur's 5 (VCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
incl
5 ch
incur

Grammar separator: incl vs incur

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: incl is apreposition and incuraverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41448, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

incl is recorded at frequency rank #21,828, classified as aprep. incur is at rank #19,620, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɪnˈkɜː/.

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 41448, this pair ranks #258,304 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of incl vs incur

Shared letters: cin. Private to "incl": l. Private to "incur": ru.

"incl" · 4 letters · shape VCCC  ·  "incur" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • incl ← icnl · inccl · incll · inlc · inncl · nicl
  • incur ← icnur · inccur · incru · incurr · inncur · inucr · nicur

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "incl" for "incur" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "incl" is a preposition and "incur" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "incl" vs "incur" - which ranks higher?
"incur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,620 in our English list, against #21,828 for "incl". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "incl" and "incur".

  • Full dictionary entry for "incl" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "incur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #258,304 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "incl" and "incur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ICJ vs incl". 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 #258,304 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