imavsIraqTell them apart

Quick tell: ima is a noun, Iraq is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ima” is a noun and “Iraq” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,435
“ima” frequency rank
#25,704
“Iraq” frequency rank
62139
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ima Iraq
Definition Maison. Pays du Moyen-Orient, situé au nord de la péninsule arabique. Il est bordé par la Turquie au nord, l’Iran au nord-est, le golfe Persique et le Koweït au sud-est, l’Arabie saoudite au sud, la Jordanie au sud-ouest, et la Syrie à l’ouest, et dont la capitale est Bagdad.

Where the eye mixes ima and Iraq

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ima
4 ch
Iraq

Why the eye confuses ima with Iraq

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ima is \ima\ while Iraq is \i.ʁak\. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62139, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ima is recorded at frequency rank #36,435, classified as anoun, pronounced \ima\. Iraq is at rank #25,704, tagged as aname, pronounced \i.ʁak\.

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 62139, this pair ranks #88,646 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ima vs Iraq

Shared letters: ai. Private to "ima": m. Private to "Iraq": qr.

"ima" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "Iraq" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Iraqiarq · iraqq · irqa · irraq · riaq

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ima" for "Iraq" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ima" is a noun and "Iraq" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "ima" or "Iraq" show up more?
"Iraq" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,704 in our French list, against #36,435 for "ima". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ima" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Iraq" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #88,646 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ima" and "Iraq" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ima vs isi". 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 #88,646 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