IRD

name

The verdict

“IRD” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #48,611) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#48,611
frequency rank, French
3,561
“I” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Établissement public à caractère scientifique et technologique (EPST) français, sous la tutelle des ministères chargés de la Recherche et de la Coopération, remplaçant l’Office de la recherche scie...

Corpus desk

Index FR-ird · IRD · French

IRD · rank #48,611 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #48,611
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,561
  • PHOTO-FINISH IPA

Nearest frequency peer: IPA (-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 « IRD »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « IRD » 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).

IRD vs it
0% similar
IRD vs ix
0% similar
IRD vs iu
0% similar

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

Key facts for IRD
PropertyValue
HeadwordIRD
LanguageFrench
Part of speechProper noun
Letters3
Frequency rank#48,611
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « IRD »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).IRDse place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « IPA » (#48,610), « irritabilité » (#48,612), « invoquées » (#48,609). Parmi 3,561 lemmes en « I », « IRD » est au #48,611. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for IRD is neighbouring look-alikes ("it", "ix", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun. Frequency #48,611 among 3,561 “I” headwords. Gloss: "Établissement public à caractère scientifique et technologique (EPST) français, sous la tutelle des ministères chargés de la Recherche et de la Coopération, remplaçant l’Office de la recherche scie...".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for IRD, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "it", "ix", "iu", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is IRD, spelled I-R-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    Établissement public à caractère scientifique et technologique (EPST) français, sous la tutelle des ministères chargés de la Recherche et de la Coopération, remplaçant l’Office de la recherche scientifique et technique outre-mer (ORSTOM).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Valérie Verdier, PDG de l’IRD, interviendra devant l’Assemblée des Membres de l’IUCN, le 9 septembre après-midi.
  2. L’IRD a pour mission de développer des projets scientifiques centrés sur les relations entre l’homme et son environnement dans la zone intertropicale.

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 "IRD"?
"IRD" is spelled I-R-D.
What does "IRD" mean?
As a proper noun, "IRD" means: Établissement public à caractère scientifique et technologique (EPST) français, sous la tutelle des ministères chargés de la Recherche et de la Coopération, remplaçant l’Office de la recherche scie...
What words are commonly confused with "IRD"?
"IRD" is commonly confused with "it", "ix", "iu". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "IRD" come from?
"IRD" 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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "IRD", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list