Which to use
“infect” is a verb and “intact” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,109
- “infect” frequency rank
- #7,351
- “intact” frequency rank
- 25460
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | infect | intact |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Left complete or whole; not touched, defiled, sullied, or otherwise damaged. |
Where the eye mixes infect and intact
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. infect and intact follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses infect with intact
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: infect is /ɪnˈfɛkt/ while intact is /ɪnˈtækt/. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25460, 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/. intact is at rank #7,351, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɪnˈtækt/.
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 25460, this pair ranks #394,096 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of infect vs intact
Shared letters: cint. Private to "infect": ef. Private to "intact": a.
"infect" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC · "intact" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "infect" for "intact" ever safe?
Which is more common, "infect" or "intact"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "infect" and "intact" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "infect" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "intact" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #394,096 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "infect" and "intact" 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 #394,096 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.