Which to use
“it's” is a contraction and “itty” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #55
- “it's” frequency rank
- #48,299
- “itty” frequency rank
- 48354
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | it's | itty |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contraction of it + is. | Extremely small; itty-bitty. |
Where the eye mixes it's and itty
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: it's is /ɪts/ while itty is /ˈɪti/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48354, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
it's is recorded at frequency rank #55, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ɪts/. itty is at rank #48,299, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɪti/.
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 48354, this pair ranks #193,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of it's vs itty
Shared letters: it. Private to "it's": s. Private to "itty": y.
"it's" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "itty" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- itty ← ittyy · ity · ityt