its vs iu, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#11,659
“its” frequency rank: #42,065
“iu” frequency rank: 53724
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	its	iu
Definition	adjetivo possessivo da terceira pessoa neutra do singular, dele ou dela.	código de língua ISO 639-3 para a macrolíngua esquimó/inuktitut

Letter map: its vs iu

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

3 ch

its

2 ch

Role in the sentence - its and iu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: its is anadjective and iuanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53724, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

its is recorded at frequency rank #11,659, classified as anadj. 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 53724, this pair ranks #11,828 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of its vs iu

Shared letters: i. Private to "its": st. Private to "iu": u.

"its" · 3 letters · shape VCC · "iu" · 2 letters · shape VV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "its" and "iu" mean the same thing in a sentence?

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

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "its" or "iu" show up more?

"its" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,659 in our Portuguese list, against #42,065 for "iu". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "its" and "iu". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "its" 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 #11,828 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"its" and "iu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ino vs iu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #11,828 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.