Which to use
“toil” is a noun and “tol” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #28,054
- “toil” frequency rank
- #41,433
- “tol” frequency rank
- 69487
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | toil | tol |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Labour, work, especially of a grueling nature. | Tall. |
Letter map: toil vs tol
Shared letters muted; letters that set toil and tol apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. toil runs 4 letters (CVVC) against tol's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - toil and tol
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: toil is anoun and tolanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69487, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
toil is recorded at frequency rank #28,054, classified as anoun, pronounced /tɔɪl/. tol is at rank #41,433, tagged as anadj.
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 69487, this pair ranks #54,355 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of toil vs tol
Shared letters: lot. Private to "toil": i. Private to "tol": -.
"toil" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "tol" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- toil ← otil · tiol · toill · toli · ttoil
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "toil" for "tol" ever safe?
Which is more common, "toil" or "tol"?
What to do next
Pair "toil" vs "tol" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "toil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tol" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #54,355 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "toil" and "tol" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Taf vs tol". 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 #54,355 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.