Which to use
“thine” is a determiner and “Thule” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #19,485
- “thine” frequency rank
- #47,381
- “Thule” frequency rank
- 66866
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thine | Thule |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Second-person singular prevocalic possessive determiner (preconsonantal form: thy). | The semi-legendary island of classical antiquity considered to represent the northernmost location in the inhabited world (the Ecumene). |
Where the eye mixes thine and Thule
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. thine and Thule follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses thine with Thule
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: thine is /ðaɪn/ while Thule is /ˈθjuːliː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (determiner vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66866, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thine is recorded at frequency rank #19,485, classified as adet, pronounced /ðaɪn/. Thule is at rank #47,381, tagged as aname, pronounced /ˈθjuːliː/.
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 66866, this pair ranks #66,066 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of thine vs Thule
Shared letters: eht. Private to "thine": in. Private to "Thule": lu.
"thine" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "Thule" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "thine" for "Thule" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "thine" or "Thule" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "thine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Thule" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #66,066 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thine" and "Thule" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Thule vs Thun". 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 #66,066 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.