thar vs tho, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“thar” is an adverb and “tho” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,944
“thar” frequency rank: #3,588
“tho” frequency rank: 46532
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	thar	tho
Definition	Nonstandard form of there.	The (plural form); those.

Letter map: thar vs tho

Shared letters muted; letters that set thar and tho apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

thar

3 ch

tho

Grammar separator: thar vs tho

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: thar is anadverb and thoanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46532, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

thar is recorded at frequency rank #42,944, classified as anadv. tho is at rank #3,588, tagged as anarticle, pronounced /ðəʊ/.

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 46532, this pair ranks #210,878 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thar vs tho

Shared letters: ht. Private to "thar": ar. Private to "tho": o.

"thar" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "tho" · 3 letters · shape CCV

Known mistypes of this pair

thar ← htar · tahr · tharr · thhar · thra · tthar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "thar" for "tho" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thar" is an adverb and "tho" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "thar" vs "tho" - which ranks higher?

"tho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,588 in our English list, against #42,944 for "thar". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "thar" and "tho".

Full dictionary entry for "thar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #210,878 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"thar" and "tho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thar 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 #210,878 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.