toothvstoteWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,305
“tooth” frequency rank
#20,518
“tote” frequency rank
26823
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tooth tote
Definition A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food. A tote bag.

Where the eye mixes tooth and tote

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
tooth
4 ch
tote

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. tooth (/tuːθ/) and tote (/təʊt/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26823, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tooth is recorded at frequency rank #6,305, classified as anoun, pronounced /tuːθ/. tote is at rank #20,518, tagged as anoun, pronounced /təʊt/.

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 26823, this pair ranks #383,788 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tooth vs tote

Shared letters: ot. Private to "tooth": h. Private to "tote": e.

"tooth" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "tote" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • toothototh · tooht · toothh · tootth · totoh · ttooth
  • toteotte · toet · totte · ttoe · ttote

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tooth" and "tote" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/tuːθ/ versus /təʊt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tooth" or "tote"?
"tooth" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,305 in our English list, against #20,518 for "tote". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "tooth" and "tote". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tooth" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tote" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #383,788 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tooth" and "tote" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tote 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list