IJ
/eɪ/
"ij" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“IJ” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #46,535) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #46,535
- frequency rank, English
- 2,140
- “I” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A lake (formerly a bay) adjoining the city of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Corpus desk
Index EN-ij · IJ · English
IJ · rank #46,535 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #46,535
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,140
- PHOTO-FINISH IGE
Nearest frequency peer: IGE (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “IJ”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- husks
husks
53,471 corpus weight
- idiopathic
idiopathic
53,468 corpus weight
- IGE
IGE
53,467 corpus weight
- IJ
IJ
53,466 corpus weight
- immigrate
immigrate
53,464 corpus weight
- implacable
implacable
53,462 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “IJ” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | IJ |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /eɪ/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #46,535 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “IJ”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for IJ is neighbouring look-alikes ("in", "is", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun pronounced /eɪ/. Frequency #46,535 among 2,140 “I” headwords. Gloss: "A lake (formerly a bay) adjoining the city of Amsterdam, Netherlands.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for IJ in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "in", "is", "it", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Dutch IJ. The correct English form is IJ, spelled I-J.
Definition
- 1A lake (formerly a bay) adjoining the city of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how IJ appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Velsen, a considerable Roman garrison, was not far away; moreover, for centuries the windy IJ formed part of the northern border of the Roman Empire.
Etymology
From Dutch IJ.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.