IndovsIndusWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Indo is a noun, Indus is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Indo” is a noun and “Indus” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,050
“Indo” frequency rank
#26,126
“Indus” frequency rank
42176
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Indo Indus
Definition A Eurasian person living in or connected with Indonesia, especially (historical) a person in the former Dutch East Indies who held European legal status but was of mixed Dutch and indigenous Indonesian descent, or a descendant of such a person. A major river in China, India and Pakistan, rising in Tibet and flowing into the Arabian Sea.

Letter map: Indo vs Indus

Shared letters muted; letters that set Indo and Indus apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
Indo
5 ch
Indus

Grammar separator: Indo vs Indus

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Indo is anoun and Indusaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42176, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Indo is recorded at frequency rank #16,050, classified as anoun. 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 42176, this pair ranks #251,627 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Indo vs Indus

Shared letters: din. Private to "Indo": o. Private to "Indus": su.

"Indo" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "Indus" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Indoidno · inddo · inndo · inod · nido
  • Indusidnus · inddus · indsu · induss · inndus · inuds · nidus

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Indo" and "Indus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Indo" is a noun and "Indus" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Indo" vs "Indus" - which ranks higher?
"Indo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,050 in our English list, against #26,126 for "Indus". 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 "Indo" and "Indus".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Indo" 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 #251,627 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Indo" 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 #251,627 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