ir

\iɾ\

/\iɾ\/ verb

The verdict

“ir” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #14,065) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#14,065
frequency rank, French
3,561
“I” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Aller, se déplacer jusqu'à un endroit.

Corpus desk

Index FR-ir · ir · French

ir · rank #14,065 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #14,065
  • LEN-SHORT 2 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,561
  • PHOTO-FINISH ion

Nearest frequency peer: ion (-1 rank slots)

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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « ir »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « ir » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

ir vs it
50% similar
ir vs ix
50% similar
ir vs iu
50% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for ir
PropertyValue
Headwordir
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\iɾ\
Letters2
Frequency rank#14,065
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « ir »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).irse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « ion » (#14,064), « ivresse » (#14,066), « intrusion » (#14,063). Parmi 3,561 lemmes en « I », « ir » est au #14,065. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for ir is neighbouring look-alikes ("it", "ix", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced \iɾ\. Frequency #14,065 among 3,561 “I” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Zero misspellings are on record for ir in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "it", "ix", "iu", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is ir, spelled I-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Aller, se déplacer jusqu'à un endroit.
  2. 2
    (ir a) Aller (utilisé comme semi-auxiliaire).

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how ir appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Hoy vamos a ver una película.

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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "ir"?
"ir" is spelled I-R. The IPA pronunciation is \iɾ\.
What does "ir" mean?
As a verb, "ir" means: Aller, se déplacer jusqu'à un endroit.
What words are commonly confused with "ir"?
"ir" is commonly confused with "it", "ix", "iu". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "ir"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ir" is \iɾ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ir" come from?
"ir" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list