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). |
Letter map: ter vs their
Shared letters muted; letters that set ter and their apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. ter runs 3 letters (CVC) against their's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Grammar separator: ter vs their
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
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "ter" and "their" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "ter" vs "their" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ter" and "their".
- Full dictionary entry for "ter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "their" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #428,195 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ter" and "their" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Taf vs ter". 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 #428,195 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.