thy vs tu, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“thy” is a pronoun and “tu” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,049
“thy” frequency rank: #2,620
“tu” frequency rank: 49669
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	thy	tu
Definition	dein	2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs tun

Where the eye mixes thy and tu

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

thy

2 ch

Look-alike desk: thy vs tu

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: thy is [ðaɪ] while tu is [tuː]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49669, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

thy is recorded at frequency rank #47,049, classified as apron, pronounced [ðaɪ]. tu is at rank #2,620, tagged as averb, pronounced [tuː].

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 49669, this pair ranks #1,202,704 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thy vs tu

Shared letters: t. Private to "thy": hy. Private to "tu": u.

"thy" · 3 letters · shape CCV · "tu" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "thy" and "tu" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thy" is a pronoun and "tu" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "thy" or "tu"?

"tu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,620 in our German list, against #47,049 for "thy". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

Full dictionary entry for "thy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,202,704 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"thy" and "tu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thy vs TSE". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,202,704 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.