Which to use
“its” is a determiner and “itty” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #75
- “its” frequency rank
- #48,299
- “itty” frequency rank
- 48374
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | its | itty |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Belonging to it. | Extremely small; itty-bitty. |
Where the eye mixes its 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: its is /ɪts/ while itty is /ˈɪti/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48374, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
its is recorded at frequency rank #75, classified as adet, 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 48374, this pair ranks #193,662 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of its vs itty
Shared letters: it. Private to "its": s. Private to "itty": y.
"its" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "itty" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- itty ← ittyy · ity · ityt