ie vs its, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ie” is a noun and “its” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,130
“ie” frequency rank: #11,659
“its” frequency rank: 38789
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ie	its
Definition	água (H₂0).	adjetivo possessivo da terceira pessoa neutra do singular, dele ou dela.

Letter map: ie vs its

Shared letters muted; letters that set ie and its apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

2 ch

3 ch

its

Grammar separator: ie vs its

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ie is anoun and itsanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38789, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ie is recorded at frequency rank #27,130, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈi.e/, /ˈi.ɛ/. its is at rank #11,659, tagged as anadj.

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 38789, this pair ranks #27,592 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ie vs its

Shared letters: i. Private to "ie": e. Private to "its": st.

"ie" · 2 letters · shape VV · "its" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ie" and "its" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ie" is a noun and "its" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "ie" or "its"?

"its" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,659 in our Portuguese list, against #27,130 for "ie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ie" and "its".

Full dictionary entry for "ie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "its" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #27,592 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ie" and "its" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ie vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #27,592 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.