Which to use
“infant” and “infants” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,236
- “infant” frequency rank
- #10,226
- “infants” frequency rank
- 17462
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | infant | infants |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A very young human being, from birth to somewhere between six months and two years of age after birth, needing almost constant care and attention. | plural of infant |
Letter map: infant vs infants
Shared letters muted; letters that set infant and infants apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. infant runs 6 letters (VCCVCC) against infants's 7 (VCCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Corpus notes: infant and infants
infant and infants are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “infant” sits inside “infants”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17462, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
infant is recorded at frequency rank #7,236, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɪn.fənt/. infants is at rank #10,226, tagged as anoun.
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 17462, this pair ranks #451,266 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of infant vs infants
Shared letters: afint. Private to "infant": -. Private to "infants": s.
"infant" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC · "infants" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "infant" and "infants" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "infant" or "infants" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "infant" and "infants".
- Full dictionary entry for "infant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "infants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #451,266 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "infant" and "infants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "infant vs Irfan". 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 #451,266 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.