ic vs ir, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#25,339
“ic” frequency rank: #162
“ir” frequency rank: 25501
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ic	ir
Definition	eu, pronome pessoal do caso reto da primeira pessoa do singular	mover-se de um lugar para outro

Letter map: ic vs ir

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

2 ch

Role in the sentence - ic and ir

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ic is apronoun and iraverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “ic” becomes r in “ir”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25501, 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/. ir is at rank #162, tagged as averb.

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 25501, this pair ranks #43,796 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ic vs ir

Shared letters: i. Private to "ic": c. Private to "ir": r.

"ic" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ir" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ic" and "ir" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

Which is more common, "ic" or "ir"?

"ir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #162 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 "ir". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "ic" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #43,796 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ic" and "ir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ic vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #43,796 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.