Which to use
“il” is a pronoun and “ion” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18
- “il” frequency rank
- #14,064
- “ion” frequency rank
- 14082
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | il | ion |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pronom de la troisième personne du singulier masculin (utilisé exclusivement en tant que sujet). Désigne une personne, un animal ou une chose dont le genre est masculin. | Atome ou molécule ayant perdu ou gagné des électrons sur sa couche externe. |
Where the eye mixes il and ion
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: il is \il\ while ion is \jɔ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14082, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
il is recorded at frequency rank #18, classified as apron, pronounced \il\. ion is at rank #14,064, tagged as anoun, pronounced \jɔ̃\.
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 14082, this pair ranks #398,275 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of il vs ion
Shared letters: i. Private to "il": l. Private to "ion": no.
"il" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ion" · 3 letters · shape VVC