innvsitsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: inn is a noun, its is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“inn” is a noun and “its” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,826
“inn” frequency rank
#18,002
“its” frequency rank
41828
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature inn its
Definition Hostal. Su, sus; que pertenece a un animal o una cosa.

Where the eye mixes inn and its

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
inn
3 ch
its

Look-alike desk: inn vs its

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: inn is /ɪn/ while its is /ɪts/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41828, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

inn is recorded at frequency rank #23,826, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɪn/. its is at rank #18,002, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɪts/.

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 41828, this pair ranks #151,563 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of inn vs its

Shared letters: i. Private to "inn": n. Private to "its": st.

"inn" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "its" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "inn" and "its" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "inn" is a noun and "its" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "inn" vs "its" - which ranks higher?
"its" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,002 in our Spanish list, against #23,826 for "inn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "inn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "its" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,563 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "inn" and "its" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "inn vs iza". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #151,563 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