tammyvstummyConfusable pair

Which to use

“tammy” and “tummy” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#18,445
“tammy” frequency rank
#16,608
“tummy” frequency rank
35053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tammy tummy
Definition A kind of woolen, or woolen and cotton, cloth, often highly glazed, used for curtains, sieves, strainers, etc. The stomach or belly.

Where the eye mixes tammy and tummy

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. tammy and tummy follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
tammy
5 ch
tummy

Visual trap between tammy and tummy

A purely visual mix-up. tammy (/ˈtami/) and tummy (/ˈtʌ.mi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “tammy” becomes u in “tummy”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tammy is recorded at frequency rank #18,445, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtami/. tummy is at rank #16,608, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtʌ.mi/.

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 35053, this pair ranks #315,318 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tammy vs tummy

Shared letters: mty. Private to "tammy": a. Private to "tummy": u.

"tammy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "tummy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tammy ← atmmy · tammyy · tamy · tamym · tmamy · ttammy
  • tummy ← tmumy · ttummy · tummyy · tumy · tumym · utmmy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tammy" and "tummy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ˈtami/ versus /ˈtʌ.mi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "tammy" or "tummy" show up more?
"tummy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,608 in our English list, against #18,445 for "tammy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tammy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tummy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #315,318 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tammy" and "tummy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tammy vs tangy". 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 #315,318 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list