ic vs in, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ic” is a pronoun and “in” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,339
“ic” frequency rank: #269
“in” frequency rank: 25608
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ic	in
Definition	eu, pronome pessoal do caso reto da primeira pessoa do singular	em

Letter map: ic vs in

Shared letters muted; letters that set ic and in apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

Grammar separator: ic vs in

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ic is apronoun and inapreposition. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “ic” becomes n in “in”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25608, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ic is recorded at frequency rank #25,339, classified as apron, pronounced /iʧ/. in is at rank #269, tagged as aprep.

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 25608, this pair ranks #43,682 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ic vs in

Shared letters: i. Private to "ic": c. Private to "in": n.

"ic" · 2 letters · shape VC · "in" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ic" and "in" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ic" is a pronoun and "in" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ic" or "in" show up more?

"in" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #269 in our Portuguese list, against #25,339 for "ic". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "ic" and "in". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "ic" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "in" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #43,682 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ic" and "in" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ic vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #43,682 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.