Which to use
“its” is a determiner and “Ives” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #75
- “its” frequency rank
- #23,012
- “Ives” frequency rank
- 23087
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | its | Ives |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Belonging to it. | A surname originating as a patronymic. |
Where the eye mixes its and Ives
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 Ives is /aɪvz/. 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 name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23087, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
its is recorded at frequency rank #75, classified as adet, pronounced /ɪts/. Ives is at rank #23,012, tagged as aname, pronounced /aɪvz/.
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 23087, this pair ranks #411,831 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of its vs Ives
Shared letters: is. Private to "its": t. Private to "Ives": ev.
"its" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "Ives" · 4 letters · shape VCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- Ives ← ievs · ivess · ivse · ivves · vies