icônevsincomeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“icône” and “income” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#10,173
“icône” frequency rank
#47,957
“income” frequency rank
58130
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature icône income
Definition Image sainte, le plus souvent peinte sur bois, qui est vénérée dans l'Église d'Orient. Rente, revenu.

Where the eye mixes icône and income

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. icône runs 5 letters (VCVCV) against income's 6 (VCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
icône
6 ch
income

Look-alike desk: icône vs income

A purely visual mix-up. icône (\i.kon\) and income ([ˈɪnˌkʌm]) 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 58130, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

icône is recorded at frequency rank #10,173, classified as anoun, pronounced \i.kon\. income is at rank #47,957, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈɪnˌkʌm].

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 58130, this pair ranks #110,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of icône vs income

Shared letters: cein. Private to "icône": ô. Private to "income": mo.

"icône" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "income" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • income ← icnome · inccome · incmoe · incoem · incomme · inncome · inocme · nicome

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "icône" and "income" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\i.kon\ versus [ˈɪnˌkʌm]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "icône" vs "income" - which ranks higher?
"icône" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,173 in our French list, against #47,957 for "income". 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 "icône" and "income" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "icône" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "income" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #110,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "icône" and "income" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "inclue vs income". 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 #110,841 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list