Which to use
“infect” and “inject” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,109
- “infect” frequency rank
- #16,254
- “inject” frequency rank
- 34363
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | infect | inject |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To bring (the body or part of it) into contact with a substance that causes illness (a pathogen), so that the pathogen begins to act on the body; (of a pathogen) to come into contact with (a body or body part) and begin to act on it. | To push or pump (something, especially fluids) into a cavity or passage. |
Where the eye mixes infect and inject
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. infect and inject follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: infect vs inject
A purely visual mix-up. infect (/ɪnˈfɛkt/) and inject (/ɪnˈd͡ʒɛkt/) 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 a single letter - f in “infect” becomes j in “inject”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34363, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
infect is recorded at frequency rank #18,109, classified as averb, pronounced /ɪnˈfɛkt/. inject is at rank #16,254, tagged as averb, pronounced /ɪnˈd͡ʒɛkt/.
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 34363, this pair ranks #321,497 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of infect vs inject
Shared letters: ceint. Private to "infect": f. Private to "inject": j.
"infect" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC · "inject" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "infect" and "inject" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "infect" or "inject"?
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 "infect" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "inject" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #321,497 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "infect" and "inject" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "infect vs invert". 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 #321,497 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.