tollingvstossingTell them apart

Which to use

“tolling” and “tossing” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#43,967
“tolling” frequency rank
#17,508
“tossing” frequency rank
61475
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tolling tossing
Definition The act by which a bell is tolled. The motion of something that tosses; a throwing or sudden rising and falling.

Letter map: tolling vs tossing

Shared letters muted; letters that set tolling and tossing apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. tolling and tossing follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
tolling
7 ch
tossing

Corpus notes: tolling and tossing

tolling and tossing are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61475, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tolling is recorded at frequency rank #43,967, classified as anoun. tossing is at rank #17,508, tagged as anoun.

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 61475, this pair ranks #94,041 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tolling vs tossing

Shared letters: ginot. Private to "tolling": l. Private to "tossing": s.

"tolling" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "tossing" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tolling ← otlling · tloling · tolilng · toling · tollign · tollingg · tollinng · tollnig
  • tossing ← otssing · tosing · tosisng · tossign · tossingg · tossinng · tossnig · tsosing

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tolling" and "tossing" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "tolling" vs "tossing" - which ranks higher?
"tossing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,508 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

You've compared "tolling" and "tossing". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tolling" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tossing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,041 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tolling" and "tossing" 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 #94,041 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