ir vs iu, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#162
“ir” frequency rank: #42,065
“iu” frequency rank: 42227
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ir	iu
Definition	mover-se de um lugar para outro	código de língua ISO 639-3 para a macrolíngua esquimó/inuktitut

Letter map: ir vs iu

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

2 ch

Role in the sentence - ir and iu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ir is averb and iuanabbrev. On the page they differ by a single letter - r in “ir” becomes u in “iu”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42227, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ir is recorded at frequency rank #162, classified as averb. iu is at rank #42,065, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced /ˈi.u/, /ˈi.ʊ/.

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 42227, this pair ranks #23,583 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ir vs iu

Shared letters: i. Private to "ir": r. Private to "iu": u.

"ir" · 2 letters · shape VC · "iu" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ir" for "iu" ever safe?

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

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

"ir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #162 in our Portuguese list, against #42,065 for "iu". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ir" and "iu".

Full dictionary entry for "ir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "iu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #23,583 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ir" and "iu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ino vs iu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #23,583 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.