iconvsiloConfusable pair

Which to use

“icon” and “ilo” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#33,653
“icon” frequency rank
#43,641
“ilo” frequency rank
77294
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature icon ilo
Definition Icono. Herramienta

Where the eye mixes icon and ilo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
icon
3 ch
ilo

Why the eye confuses icon with ilo

A purely visual mix-up. icon (/ˈaɪ.kɒn/) and ilo (/ˈilo/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77294, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

icon is recorded at frequency rank #33,653, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈaɪ.kɒn/. ilo is at rank #43,641, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈilo/.

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 77294, this pair ranks #16,254 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of icon vs ilo

Shared letters: io. Private to "icon": cn. Private to "ilo": l.

"icon" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "ilo" · 3 letters · shape VCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • iconcion · iccon · icno · iconn · iocn

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "icon" and "ilo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈaɪ.kɒn/ versus /ˈilo/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "icon" or "ilo" show up more?
"icon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,653 in our Spanish list, against #43,641 for "ilo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "icon" and "ilo" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "icon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ilo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,254 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "icon" and "ilo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ilo vs iza". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #16,254 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list