thyvstunWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: thy is a pronoun, tun is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#47,049
“thy” frequency rank
#245
“tun” frequency rank
47294
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature thy tun
Definition dein eine Handlung ausführen

Where the eye mixes thy and tun

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

3 ch
thy
3 ch
tun

Visual trap between thy and tun

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: thy is [ðaɪ] while tun is [tuːn]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47294, 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]. tun is at rank #245, tagged as averb, pronounced [tuːn].

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 47294, this pair ranks #1,289,417 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thy vs tun

Shared letters: t. Private to "thy": hy. Private to "tun": nu.

"thy" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "tun" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "thy" and "tun" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thy" is a pronoun and "tun" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "thy" or "tun"?
"tun" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #245 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.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "thy" and "tun" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "thy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tun" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,289,417 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "thy" and "tun" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thy vs TSE". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,289,417 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