insvsitsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ins is a preposition, its is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#27,900
“ins” frequency rank
#11,659
“its” frequency rank
39559
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ins its
Definition ao, no, dendro do adjetivo possessivo da terceira pessoa neutra do singular, dele ou dela.

Letter map: ins vs its

Shared letters muted; letters that set ins and its apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
ins
3 ch
its

Role in the sentence - ins and its

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ins is apreposition and itsanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - n in “ins” becomes t in “its”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39559, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ins is recorded at frequency rank #27,900, classified as aprep, pronounced /ɪns/. 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 39559, this pair ranks #26,666 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ins vs its

Shared letters: is. Private to "ins": n. Private to "its": t.

"ins" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "its" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ins" and "its" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ins" is a preposition and "its" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ins" or "its"?
"its" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,659 in our Portuguese list, against #27,900 for "ins". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ins" 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 #26,666 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ins" and "its" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ino vs ins". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #26,666 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