Which to use
“told” is a verb and “tour” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #268
- “told” frequency rank
- #1,112
- “tour” frequency rank
- 1380
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | told | tour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of tell | A journey through a particular building, estate, country, etc. |
Where the eye mixes told and tour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: told is /təʊld/ while tour is /tɔː(ɹ)/. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1380, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
told is recorded at frequency rank #268, classified as averb, pronounced /təʊld/. 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 1380, this pair ranks #527,556 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of told vs tour
Shared letters: ot. Private to "told": dl. Private to "tour": ru.
"told" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "tour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC