tollingvsTomlinTell them apart

Quick tell: tolling is a noun, Tomlin is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tolling” is a noun and “Tomlin” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,967
“tolling” frequency rank
#33,458
“Tomlin” frequency rank
77425
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tolling Tomlin
Definition The act by which a bell is tolled. A surname transferred from the given name.

Letter map: tolling vs Tomlin

Shared letters muted; letters that set tolling and Tomlin apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
tolling
6 ch
Tomlin

Part-of-speech tell for tolling / Tomlin

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tolling is anoun and Tomlinaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77425, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tolling is recorded at frequency rank #43,967, classified as anoun. Tomlin is at rank #33,458, tagged as aname.

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 77425, this pair ranks #27,294 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tolling vs Tomlin

Shared letters: ilnot. Private to "tolling": g. Private to "Tomlin": m.

"tolling" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "Tomlin" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tollingotlling · tloling · tolilng · toling · tollign · tollingg · tollinng · tollnig
  • Tomlinotmlin · tmolin · tolmin · tomiln · tomlinn · tomllin · tomlni · tommlin

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tolling" for "Tomlin" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tolling" is a noun and "Tomlin" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "tolling" or "Tomlin" show up more?
"Tomlin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,458 in our English list, against #43,967 for "tolling". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "tolling" vs "Tomlin" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tolling" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Tomlin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,294 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tolling" and "Tomlin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "toiling vs tolling". 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 #27,294 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