IndusvsinouïTell them apart

Quick tell: Indus is a name, inouï is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Indus” is a name and “inouï” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,483
“Indus” frequency rank
#32,859
“inouï” frequency rank
60342
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Indus inouï
Definition Fleuve d’Asie qui prend sa source en Chine, passe par le Pakistan et l’Inde et se jette dans l’océan Indien, et qui a donné son nom à l’Inde. Qu’on n’a pas ouï.

Where the eye mixes Indus and inouï

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Indus (VCCVC) and inouï (VCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
Indus
5 ch
inouï

Look-alike desk: Indus vs inouï

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Indus is \ɛ̃.dys\ while inouï is \i.nwi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60342, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Indus is recorded at frequency rank #27,483, classified as aname, pronounced \ɛ̃.dys\. inouï is at rank #32,859, tagged as anadj, pronounced \i.nwi\.

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 60342, this pair ranks #98,095 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Indus vs inouï

Shared letters: inu. Private to "Indus": ds. Private to "inouï": oï.

"Indus" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "inouï" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Indus ← idnus · inddus · indsu · induss · inndus · inuds · nidus

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Indus" for "inouï" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Indus" is a name and "inouï" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Indus" or "inouï" show up more?
"Indus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,483 in our French list, against #32,859 for "inouï". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Indus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "inouï" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #98,095 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Indus" and "inouï" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "inouï vs input". 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 #98,095 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