inkyvsintWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: inky is a adjective, int is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“inky” is an adjective and “int” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,122
“inky” frequency rank
#9,770
“int” frequency rank
56892
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature inky int
Definition Of the colour of ink, especially black ink; dark. To die intentionally in a match by having oneself slain by enemy characters or structures so as to give resources to the opposing team

Letter map: inky vs int

Shared letters muted; letters that set inky and int apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. inky runs 4 letters (VCCV) against int's 3 (VCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
inky
3 ch
int

Role in the sentence - inky and int

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: inky is anadjective and intaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56892, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

inky is recorded at frequency rank #47,122, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɪŋki/. int is at rank #9,770, tagged as averb.

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 56892, this pair ranks #123,015 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of inky vs int

Shared letters: in. Private to "inky": ky. Private to "int": t.

"inky" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "int" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • inky ← ikny · inkky · inkyy · innky · inyk · niky

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "inky" and "int" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "inky" is an adjective and "int" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "inky" or "int" show up more?
"int" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,770 in our English list, against #47,122 for "inky". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "inky" and "int". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "inky" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "int" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #123,015 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "inky" and "int" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "inky vs itty". 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 #123,015 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