ilsvsíonWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ils is a pronoun, íon is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ils” is a pronoun and “íon” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,900
“ils” frequency rank
#44,174
“íon” frequency rank
89074
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ils íon
Definition eles espécie química eletricamente carregada, geralmente um átomo ou molécula que perdeu ou ganhou elétrons

Letter map: ils vs íon

Shared letters muted; letters that set ils and íon apart highlighted. No shared letter run.

3 ch
ils
3 ch
íon

Part-of-speech tell for ils / íon

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ils is apronoun and íonanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89074, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ils is recorded at frequency rank #44,900, classified as apron, pronounced \il\. íon is at rank #44,174, tagged as anoun.

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 89074, this pair ranks #355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ils vs íon

Shared letters: none. Private to "ils": ils. Private to "íon": noí.

"ils" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "íon" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ils" and "íon" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ils" is a pronoun and "íon" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ils" vs "íon" - which ranks higher?
"íon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,174 in our Portuguese list, against #44,900 for "ils". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "ils" vs "íon" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ils" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "íon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ils" and "íon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ils vs ino". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list