Which to use
“toh” is a verb and “tomb” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #47,966
- “toh” frequency rank
- #8,495
- “tomb” frequency rank
- 56461
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | toh | tomb |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To collapse (fail or break down internally); to fall asleep or collapse from exhaustion. | A small building, or a room within one, for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. It may be partly or wholly in the ground (except for its entrance) in a cemetery, or it may be inside a church proper or in its crypt. Single tombs may be permanently sealed; those for families (or other groups) have doors for access whenever needed. |
Where the eye mixes toh and tomb
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. toh runs 3 letters (CVC) against tomb's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses toh with tomb
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: toh is [t˭o˦˨] while tomb is /tuːm/. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56461, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
toh is recorded at frequency rank #47,966, classified as averb, pronounced [t˭o˦˨]. tomb is at rank #8,495, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tuːm/.
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 56461, this pair ranks #126,128 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of toh vs tomb
Shared letters: ot. Private to "toh": h. Private to "tomb": bm.
"toh" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "tomb" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- tomb ← otmb · tmob · tobm · tombb · tommb · ttomb
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "toh" and "tomb" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "toh" vs "tomb" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "toh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tomb" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #126,128 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "toh" and "tomb" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Taf vs toh". 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 #126,128 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.