toothvstoutWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,305
“tooth” frequency rank
#23,134
“tout” frequency rank
29439
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tooth tout
Definition A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food. Someone advertising for customers in an aggressive way.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set tooth and tout apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
tooth
4 ch
tout

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. tooth (/tuːθ/) and tout (/taʊt/) 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 29439, 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/. tout is at rank #23,134, tagged as anoun, pronounced /taʊt/.

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 29439, this pair ranks #362,996 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tooth vs tout

Shared letters: ot. Private to "tooth": h. Private to "tout": u.

"tooth" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "tout" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • toothototh · tooht · toothh · tootth · totoh · ttooth
  • toutotut · totu · toutt · ttout · tuot

Frequency comparison

tooth#6,305
tout#23,134

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tooth" and "tout" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/tuːθ/ versus /taʊt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tooth" or "tout"?
"tooth" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,305 in our English list, against #23,134 for "tout". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering tooth vs tout

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Read both glosses above and match the meaning you intend, only context separates this pair.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “tooth” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list