tokevstooTell them apart

Quick tell: toke is a noun, too is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“toke” is a noun and “too” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,056
“toke” frequency rank
#121
“too” frequency rank
40177
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature toke too
Definition A gratuity. Likewise.

Where the eye mixes toke and too

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

4 ch
toke
3 ch
too

Why the eye confuses toke with too

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: toke is /təʊk/ while too is /tuː/. 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 (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40177, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

toke is recorded at frequency rank #40,056, classified as anoun, pronounced /təʊk/. too is at rank #121, tagged as anadv, pronounced /tuː/.

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 40177, this pair ranks #269,939 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of toke vs too

Shared letters: ot. Private to "toke": ek. Private to "too": -.

"toke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "too" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tokeotke · tkoe · toek · tokke · ttoke

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "toke" for "too" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "toke" is a noun and "too" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "toke" vs "too" - which ranks higher?
"too" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #121 in our English list, against #40,056 for "toke". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "toke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "too" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #269,939 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "toke" and "too" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "toke vs Toth". 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 #269,939 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list