scratchvsTOWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#43,485
“scratch” frequency rank
#589
“TO” frequency rank
44074
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature scratch TO
Definition kratzen KFZ-Kennzeichen für Torino (Turin)

Letter map: scratch vs TO

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

7 ch
scratch
2 ch
TO

Part-of-speech tell for scratch / TO

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: scratch is averb and TOanabbrev. On the page they differ by 5 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44074, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

scratch is recorded at frequency rank #43,485, 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 44074, this pair ranks #1,397,871 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of scratch vs TO

Shared letters: t. Private to "scratch": achrs. Private to "TO": o.

"scratch" · 7 letters · shape CCCVCCC  ·  "TO" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • scratchcsratch · scartch · sccratch · scracth · scratcch · scratchh · scrathc · scrattch

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "scratch" and "TO" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "scratch" is a verb and "TO" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "scratch" or "TO"?
"TO" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #589 in our German list, against #43,485 for "scratch". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "scratch" 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 #1,397,871 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "scratch" and "TO" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs scratch". 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 #1,397,871 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