southvsTOWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#8,947
“south” frequency rank
#589
“TO” frequency rank
9536
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature south TO
Definition Himmelsrichtung; Süden KFZ-Kennzeichen für Torino (Turin)

Letter map: south vs TO

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

5 ch
south
2 ch
TO

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: south is anoun and TOanabbrev. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9536, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

south is recorded at frequency rank #8,947, 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 9536, this pair ranks #1,979,468 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of south vs TO

Shared letters: ot. Private to "south": hsu. Private to "TO": -.

"south" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "TO" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • southosuth · sotuh · souht · southh · soutth · ssouth · suoth

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "south" and "TO" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "south" is a noun and "TO" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "south" or "TO"?
"TO" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #589 in our German list, against #8,947 for "south". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "south" 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 #1,979,468 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "south" and "TO" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs south". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list