breakingvsTOWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: breaking is a verb, TO is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#17,242
“breaking” frequency rank
#589
“TO” frequency rank
17831
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature breaking TO
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs break KFZ-Kennzeichen für Torino (Turin)

Letter map: breaking vs TO

Shared letters muted; letters that set breaking and TO apart highlighted. No shared letter run.

8 ch
breaking
2 ch
TO

Role in the sentence - breaking and TO

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: breaking is averb and TOanabbrev. On the page they differ by 6 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17831, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

breaking is recorded at frequency rank #17,242, classified as averb, pronounced […]. TO is at rank #589, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced […].

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 17831, this pair ranks #1,923,868 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of breaking vs TO

Shared letters: none. Private to "breaking": abegiknr. Private to "TO": ot.

"breaking" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVCC  ·  "TO" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • breakingbbreaking · beraking · braeking · breaikng · breakign · breakingg · breakinng · breakking

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "breaking" and "TO" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "breaking" is a verb and "TO" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "breaking" or "TO"?
"TO" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #589 in our German list, against #17,242 for "breaking". 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 "breaking" and "TO".

  • Full dictionary entry for "breaking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "TO" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,923,868 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "breaking" and "TO" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "breaking vs puzzles". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,923,868 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list