ter vs their, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ter” is a particle and “their” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,796
“ter” frequency rank: #56
“their” frequency rank: 20852
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ter	their
Definition	Eye dialect spelling of to.	Belonging to, from, of, or relating to, them (plural).

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set ter and their apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

3 ch

ter

5 ch

their

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ter is aparticle and theiradeterminer. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20852, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ter is recorded at frequency rank #20,796, classified as aparticle. their is at rank #56, tagged as adet, pronounced /ðɛə/.

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 20852, this pair ranks #428,195 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ter vs their

Shared letters: ert. Private to "ter": -. Private to "their": hi.

"ter" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "their" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

their ← hteir · tehir · theirr · theri · thheir · ttheir

Frequency comparison

ter#20,796

their#56

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ter" and "their" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ter" is a particle and "their" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "ter" or "their"?

"their" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #56 in our English list, against #20,796 for "ter". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering ter vs their

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a particle, it's “ter”; for a determiner, it's “their”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “ter” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable