infovsinitTell them apart

Which to use

“info” and “init” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,489
“info” frequency rank
#39,860
“init” frequency rank
42349
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature info init
Definition information. Clipping of initialization.

Where the eye mixes info and init

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
info
4 ch
init

Why the eye confuses info with init

A purely visual mix-up. info (/ˈɪnfəʊ/) and init (/ˈɪn.ɪt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42349, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

info is recorded at frequency rank #2,489, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɪnfəʊ/. init is at rank #39,860, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɪn.ɪt/.

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 42349, this pair ranks #250,051 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of info vs init

Shared letters: in. Private to "info": fo. Private to "init": t.

"info" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "init" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • infoifno · inffo · innfo · inof · nifo
  • initiint · initt · inti · niit

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "info" for "init" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈɪnfəʊ/ versus /ˈɪn.ɪt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "info" or "init"?
"info" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,489 in our English list, against #39,860 for "init". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "info" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "init" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #250,051 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "info" and "init" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "init vs inna". 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 #250,051 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