issa
/ˈɪsə/
"issa" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“issa” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #21,249) as a contraction. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #21,249
- frequency rank, English
- 2,140
- “I” headwords
- 2
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Contraction of it's + a.
Corpus desk
Index EN-issa · issa · English
issa · rank #21,249 · 2 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #21,249
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 2 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,140
- PHOTO-FINISH IOC
Nearest frequency peer: IOC (-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 “issa”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- insidious
insidious
78,755 corpus weight
- intimately
intimately
78,754 corpus weight
- IOC
IOC
78,753 corpus weight
- issa
issa
78,752 corpus weight
- jargon
jargon
78,751 corpus weight
- kayak
kayak
78,749 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “issa” 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 | issa |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Contraction |
| IPA | /ˈɪsə/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #21,249 |
| Misspellings tracked | 2 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “issa”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for issa is neighbouring look-alikes ("its", "isu", …), not just typos; it is acontraction pronounced /ˈɪsə/. Frequency #21,249 among 2,140 “I” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 2 likely wrong-spelling variants for issa, including "isas" and "sisa". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "its", "isu", "issue", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is issa, spelled I-S-S-A.
Definition
- 1Contraction of it's + a.
- 2Contraction of is + a.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- isas
- sisa
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of issa - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
How do you spell "issa"?
What does "issa" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "issa"?
How do you pronounce "issa"?
What language does "issa" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "issa", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).