Which to use
“icône” and “Ironie” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #10,173
- “icône” frequency rank
- #7,201
- “Ironie” frequency rank
- 17374
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | icône | Ironie |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Image sainte, le plus souvent peinte sur bois, qui est vénérée dans l'Église d'Orient. | Ironie. |
Where the eye mixes icône and Ironie
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. icône runs 5 letters (VCVCV) against Ironie's 6 (VCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between icône and Ironie
A purely visual mix-up. icône (\i.kon\) and Ironie (\i.ro.ˈniː\) 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 17374, 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\. Ironie is at rank #7,201, tagged as anoun, pronounced \i.ro.ˈniː\.
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 17374, this pair ranks #383,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of icône vs Ironie
Shared letters: ein. Private to "icône": cô. Private to "Ironie": or.
"icône" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV · "Ironie" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- Ironie ← iornie · irnoie · iroine · ironei · ironnie · irronie · rionie
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "icône" for "Ironie" ever safe?
Frequency check: "icône" vs "Ironie" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "icône" and "Ironie" 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 "Ironie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #383,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "icône" and "Ironie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "icône 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 #383,497 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.