TO vs ty, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#589
“TO” frequency rank: #30,332
“ty” frequency rank: 30921
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	TO	ty
Definition	KFZ-Kennzeichen für Torino (Turin)	Dativ Singular des Personalpronomens ti „du“

Letter map: TO vs ty

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

2 ch

Grammar separator: TO vs ty

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: TO is anabbrev and tyapronoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - o in “TO” becomes y in “ty”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

TO is recorded at frequency rank #589, classified as anabbrev, pronounced […]. ty is at rank #30,332, tagged as apron, pronounced [ty].

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 30921, this pair ranks #1,738,412 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of TO vs ty

Shared letters: t. Private to "TO": o. Private to "ty": y.

"TO" · 2 letters · shape CV · "ty" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "TO" for "ty" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "TO" is an abbrev and "ty" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "TO" or "ty"?

"TO" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #589 in our German list, against #30,332 for "ty". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "TO" vs "ty" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "TO" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "ty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,738,412 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"TO" and "ty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thy vs ty". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,738,412 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.