ill vs im, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ill” is an adjective and “im” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,899
“ill” frequency rank: #12,077
“im” frequency rank: 56976
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ill	im
Definition	doente	sou;

Letter map: ill vs im

Shared letters muted; letters that set ill and im apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

ill

2 ch

Part-of-speech tell for ill / im

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ill is anadjective and imaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56976, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ill is recorded at frequency rank #44,899, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɪl/. im is at rank #12,077, 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 56976, this pair ranks #9,613 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ill vs im

Shared letters: i. Private to "ill": l. Private to "im": m.

"ill" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "im" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ill" and "im" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "ill" or "im" show up more?

"im" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,077 in our Portuguese list, against #44,899 for "ill". 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 "ill" and "im".

Full dictionary entry for "ill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "im" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #9,613 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ill" and "im" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ill vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #9,613 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.