is

verb

The verdict

“is” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,709) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#1,709
frequency rank, Portuguese
938
“I” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - contração de agus; e

Corpus desk

Index PT-is · is · Portuguese

is · rank #1,709 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #1,709
  • LEN-SHORT 2 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 938
  • PHOTO-FINISH jamais

Nearest frequency peer: jamais (+1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Vizinhos de frequência do confusável “is”

Pares de peso semelhante no corpus, aparte dos confusáveis abaixo

corpus weight

What this shows As barras situam “is” face aos lemas portugueses mais próximos por rank, não um reprint da secretária de confusáveis.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

is vs it
50% similar
is vs iu
50% similar
is vs its
67% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for is
PropertyValue
Headwordis
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechVerb
Letters2
Frequency rank#1,709
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rank de corpus junto a confusáveis de “is”

Esta escala corre do núcleo do português quotidiano (esquerda) até o rastro de formas raras (direita).iscai aqui:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

O eixo é logarítmico: cada tick marca cerca de dez vezes menos frequência. Na mesma faixa de raridade aparecem “jamais” (#1,710), “distribuição” (#1,707), “leite” (#1,711). Entre 938 lemas com “I”, “is” fica em #1,709. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for is is neighbouring look-alikes ("it", "iu", …), not just typos; it is averb. Frequency #1,709 among 938 “I” headwords. Gloss: "contração de agus; e".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for is, suggesting the orthography follows predictable Portuguese patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "it", "iu", "its", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct Portuguese form is is, spelled I-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    contração de agus; e

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how is appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. caileag is cat

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "is"?
"is" is spelled I-S.
What does "is" mean?
As a verb, "is" means: contração de agus; e
What words are commonly confused with "is"?
"is" is commonly confused with "it", "iu", "its". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "is" come from?
"is" is a Portuguese word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list