ishavsissaTell them apart

Quick tell: isha is a noun, issa is a contraction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“isha” is a noun and “issa” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,432
“isha” frequency rank
#21,249
“issa” frequency rank
70681
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature isha issa
Definition The evening/night Islamic prayer. Contraction of it's + a.

Letter map: isha vs issa

Shared letters muted; letters that set isha and issa apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
isha
4 ch
issa

Grammar separator: isha vs issa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: isha is anoun and issaacontraction. On the page they differ by a single letter - h in “isha” becomes s in “issa”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70681, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

isha is recorded at frequency rank #49,432, classified as anoun. issa is at rank #21,249, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /ˈɪsə/.

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 70681, this pair ranks #49,559 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of isha vs issa

Shared letters: ais. Private to "isha": h. Private to "issa": -.

"isha" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "issa" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ishaihsa · isah · ishha · issha · siha
  • issaisas · sisa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "isha" for "issa" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "isha" is a noun and "issa" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "isha" vs "issa" - which ranks higher?
"issa" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,249 in our English list, against #49,432 for "isha". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "isha" and "issa". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "isha" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "issa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,559 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "isha" and "issa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "isha vs ith". 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 #49,559 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