errorvsTOWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#21,958
“error” frequency rank
#589
“TO” frequency rank
22547
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature error TO
Definition Fehler, Irrtum, Schnitzer KFZ-Kennzeichen für Torino (Turin)

Letter map: error vs TO

Shared letters muted; letters that set error and TO apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

5 ch
error
2 ch
TO

Part-of-speech tell for error / TO

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: error is anoun and TOanabbrev. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22547, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

error is recorded at frequency rank #21,958, classified as anoun, 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 22547, this pair ranks #1,872,843 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of error vs TO

Shared letters: o. Private to "error": er. Private to "TO": t.

"error" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "TO" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • erroreror · erorr · errorr · errro · reror

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "error" and "TO" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "error" is a noun and "TO" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "error" vs "TO" - which ranks higher?
"TO" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #589 in our German list, against #21,958 for "error". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "error" and "TO". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "error" 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 #1,872,843 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "error" and "TO" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "error 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 #1,872,843 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