io
/ˈaɪəʊ/
"io" is a 2-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“io” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #16,946) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #16,946
- frequency rank, English
- 2,140
- “I” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A type of moth, the io moth.
Corpus desk
Index EN-io · io · English
io · rank #16,946 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #16,946
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,140
- PHOTO-FINISH Ipswich
Nearest frequency peer: Ipswich (+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 “io”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- indefinite
indefinite
83,059 corpus weight
- indices
indices
83,058 corpus weight
- insightful
insightful
83,057 corpus weight
- io
io
83,055 corpus weight
- Ipswich
Ipswich
83,054 corpus weight
- irrespective
irrespective
83,053 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “io” 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 | io |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈaɪəʊ/ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #16,946 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “io”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for io is neighbouring look-alikes ("is", "it", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /ˈaɪəʊ/. Frequency #16,946 among 2,140 “I” headwords. Gloss: "A type of moth, the io moth.".
io has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "is", "it", "IV", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From New Latin, from Ancient Greek Ἰώ (Iṓ, “Io”). The correct English form is io, spelled I-O.
Definition
- 1A type of moth, the io moth.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how io appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
These lines appear to serve as roadways or guides to any stragglers that may have hung back for some reason known only to an io.
Etymology
From New Latin, from Ancient Greek Ἰώ (Iṓ, “Io”).
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.