Which to use
“index” is a noun and “Indus” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,628
- “index” frequency rank
- #26,126
- “Indus” frequency rank
- 28754
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | index | Indus |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An alphabetical listing of items and their location. | A major river in China, India and Pakistan, rising in Tibet and flowing into the Arabian Sea. |
Where the eye mixes index and Indus
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. index and Indus follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: index vs Indus
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: index is /ˈɪndɛks/ while Indus is /ˈɪn.dəs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28754, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
index is recorded at frequency rank #2,628, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɪndɛks/. Indus is at rank #26,126, tagged as aname, pronounced /ˈɪn.dəs/.
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 28754, this pair ranks #368,581 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of index vs Indus
Shared letters: din. Private to "index": ex. Private to "Indus": su.
"index" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC · "Indus" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "index" for "Indus" ever safe?
Frequency check: "index" vs "Indus" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "index" and "Indus" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "index" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Indus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #368,581 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "index" and "Indus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Indus vs Inoue". 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 #368,581 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.