Which to use
“icon” and “io” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,845
- “icon” frequency rank
- #23,588
- “io” frequency rank
- 62433
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | icon | io |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Icône. | Septième lettre de l’alphabet cyrillique, ё. |
Where the eye mixes icon and io
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: icon vs io
A purely visual mix-up. icon (\ˈaɪ.kɒn\) and io (\jo\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62433, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
icon is recorded at frequency rank #38,845, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈaɪ.kɒn\. io is at rank #23,588, tagged as anoun, pronounced \jo\.
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 62433, this pair ranks #87,164 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of icon vs io
Shared letters: io. Private to "icon": cn. Private to "io": -.
"icon" · 4 letters · shape VCVC · "io" · 2 letters · shape VV
Known mistypes of this pair
- icon ← iccon · icno · iconn · iocn
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "icon" for "io" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "icon" or "io" show up more?
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 "icon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "io" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #87,164 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "icon" and "io" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "icon vs Ilona". 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 #87,164 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.