Indus
/ˈɪn.dəs/
"indus" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Indus” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #26,126 in English word frequency and used as a proper noun.
- #26,126
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 19
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A major river in China, India and Pakistan, rising in Tibet and flowing into the Arabian Sea.
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 | Indus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈɪn.dəs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #26,126 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Indus” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for Indus is 5 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɪn.dəs/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,126 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A major river in China, India and Pakistan, rising in Tibet and flowing into the Arabian Sea.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for Indus, with forms such as "idnus", "inddus", and "indsu". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 19 confusable-pair relationships, "ins", "Indy", "inns", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Latin Indus, from Ancient Greek Ἰνδός (Indós), from Old Persian 𐏃𐎡𐎯𐎢𐏁 (h-i-du-u-š /hiⁿduš/), from Proto-Iranian *hínduš (compare Avestan 𐬵𐬌𐬧𐬛𐬎 (hiṇdu)), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *síndʰuš or borrowed from Sanskrit सिन्धु (síndhu) (wh… The correct English form is Indus, spelled I-N-D-U-S.
Definition
- 1A major river in China, India and Pakistan, rising in Tibet and flowing into the Arabian Sea.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin Indus, from Ancient Greek Ἰνδός (Indós), from Old Persian 𐏃𐎡𐎯𐎢𐏁 (h-i-du-u-š /hiⁿduš/), from Proto-Iranian *hínduš (compare Avestan 𐬵𐬌𐬧𐬛𐬎 (hiṇdu)), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *síndʰuš or borrowed from Sanskrit सिन्धु (síndhu) (whence Sindh). Another explication relates the origin of Indus to Indra which itself derives from the root indu, i.e. " water place or water spirit".
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: idnus,inddus,indsu,induss,inndus,inuds,nidus
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Indus - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “Indus”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is I-N-D-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɪn.dəs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ins” - see the side-by-side comparison. Indus vs ins
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.