if vs ir, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#5,207
“if” frequency rank: #162
“ir” frequency rank: 5369
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	if	ir
Definition	equivalente à conjunção se	mover-se de um lugar para outro

Letter map: if vs ir

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

2 ch

Role in the sentence - if and ir

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: if is aconjunction and iraverb. On the page they differ by a single letter - f in “if” becomes r in “ir”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5369, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

if is recorded at frequency rank #5,207, classified as aconj, pronounced /ɪf/. 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 5369, this pair ranks #69,261 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of if vs ir

Shared letters: i. Private to "if": f. Private to "ir": r.

"if" · 2 letters · shape VC · "ir" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "if" and "ir" be used interchangeably?

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

Frequency check: "if" vs "ir" - which ranks higher?

"ir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #162 in our Portuguese list, against #5,207 for "if". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "if" and "ir". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "if" 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 #69,261 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"if" and "ir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "if vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #69,261 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.