hawksvsTOWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#33,631
“hawks” frequency rank
#589
“TO” frequency rank
34220
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hawks TO
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs hawk KFZ-Kennzeichen für Torino (Turin)

Letter map: hawks vs TO

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

5 ch
hawks
2 ch
TO

Grammar separator: hawks vs TO

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hawks is averb and TOanabbrev. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34220, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hawks is recorded at frequency rank #33,631, 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 34220, this pair ranks #1,668,354 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hawks vs TO

Shared letters: none. Private to "hawks": ahksw. Private to "TO": ot.

"hawks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "TO" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hawksahwks · hakws · hawkks · hawkss · hawsk · hawwks · hhawks · hwaks

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hawks" for "TO" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hawks" is a verb and "TO" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hawks" vs "TO" - which ranks higher?
"TO" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #589 in our German list, against #33,631 for "hawks". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "hawks" and "TO".

  • Full dictionary entry for "hawks" 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 #1,668,354 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hawks" and "TO" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hawks 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 #1,668,354 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