tohvstourWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: toh is a verb, tour is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“toh” is a verb and “tour” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,966
“toh” frequency rank
#1,112
“tour” frequency rank
49078
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature toh tour
Definition To collapse (fail or break down internally); to fall asleep or collapse from exhaustion. A journey through a particular building, estate, country, etc.

Where the eye mixes toh and tour

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
toh
4 ch
tour

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: toh is [t˭o˦˨] while tour is /tɔː(ɹ)/. 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 49078, 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˦˨]. tour is at rank #1,112, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tɔː(ɹ)/.

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 49078, this pair ranks #187,064 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of toh vs tour

Shared letters: ot. Private to "toh": h. Private to "tour": ru.

"toh" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "tour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tourotur · toru · tourr · ttour · tuor

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "toh" and "tour" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "toh" is a verb and "tour" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "toh" or "tour"?
"tour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,112 in our English list, against #47,966 for "toh". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list