Which to use
“told” is a verb and “tops” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #44,284
- “told” frequency rank
- #31,825
- “tops” frequency rank
- 76109
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | told | tops |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs tell | Plural des Substantivs top |
Letter map: told vs tops
Shared letters muted; letters that set told and tops apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. told and tops follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Role in the sentence - told and tops
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: told is averb and topsanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76109, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
told is recorded at frequency rank #44,284, classified as averb, pronounced [təʊld]. tops is at rank #31,825, tagged as anoun, 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 76109, this pair ranks #291,560 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of told vs tops
Shared letters: ot. Private to "told": dl. Private to "tops": ps.
"told" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "tops" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "told" and "tops" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary German text, does "told" or "tops" show up more?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "told" and "tops".
- Full dictionary entry for "told" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tops" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #291,560 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "told" and "tops" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "told vs Tons". 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 #291,560 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.