Which to use
“teak” is a noun and “tha” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #35,552
- “teak” frequency rank
- #12,696
- “tha” frequency rank
- 48248
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | teak | tha |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | An extremely durable timber highly valued for shipbuilding and other purposes, yielded by Tectona grandis (and Tectona spp.). | Pronunciation spelling of thou. |
Where the eye mixes teak and tha
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: teak vs tha
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: teak is /tiːk/ while tha is /ða/. 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 (noun vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48248, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
teak is recorded at frequency rank #35,552, classified as anoun, pronounced /tiːk/. tha is at rank #12,696, tagged as apron, pronounced /ða/.
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 48248, this pair ranks #194,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of teak vs tha
Shared letters: at. Private to "teak": ek. Private to "tha": h.
"teak" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "tha" · 3 letters · shape CCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- teak ← etak · teakk · teka · tteak
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "teak" for "tha" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "teak" or "tha" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "teak" and "tha" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "teak" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tha" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #194,877 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "teak" and "tha" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "teak vs Trav". 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 #194,877 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.