is vs ISP, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“is” is a verb and “ISP” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8
“is” frequency rank: #20,971
“ISP” frequency rank: 20979
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	is	ISP
Definition	third-person singular simple present indicative of be	Initialism of interstellar polarization.

Letter map: is vs ISP

Shared letters muted; letters that set is and ISP apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

ISP

Role in the sentence - is and ISP

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: is is averb and ISPanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “is” sits inside “ISP”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

is is recorded at frequency rank #8, classified as averb, pronounced /ɪz/. ISP is at rank #20,971, tagged as anoun.

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 20979, this pair ranks #427,286 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of is vs ISP

Shared letters: is. Private to "is": -. Private to "ISP": p.

"is" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ISP" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "is" and "ISP" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "is" is a verb and "ISP" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "is" or "ISP" show up more?

"is" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8 in our English list, against #20,971 for "ISP". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "is" and "ISP".

Full dictionary entry for "is" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ISP" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #427,286 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"is" and "ISP" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ISP vs ith". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #427,286 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.