# IRB vs it

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### IRB
*noun · frequency rank #33,690*
Initialism of institutional review board, a committee that reviews the designs of proposed experiments to confirm whether all the methods proposed are ethical.

### it
*pronoun · IPA /ɪt/ · frequency rank #12*
The third-person singular neuter personal pronoun used to refer to an inanimate object, abstract entity, or non-human living thing.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/irb-vs-it
