tourvstuiWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,112
“tour” frequency rank
#38,658
“tui” frequency rank
39770
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tour tui
Definition A journey through a particular building, estate, country, etc. A species of honeyeater, Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae, a bird which is endemic to New Zealand.

Where the eye mixes tour and tui

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
tour
3 ch
tui

Why the eye confuses tour with tui

A purely visual mix-up. tour (/tɔː(ɹ)/) and tui (/ˈtʉi/) 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 39770, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tour is recorded at frequency rank #1,112, classified as anoun, pronounced /tɔː(ɹ)/. tui is at rank #38,658, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtʉi/.

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 39770, this pair ranks #273,666 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tour vs tui

Shared letters: tu. Private to "tour": or. Private to "tui": i.

"tour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "tui" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tourotur · toru · tourr · ttour · tuor

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tour" and "tui" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/tɔː(ɹ)/ versus /ˈtʉi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "tour" or "tui" show up more?
"tour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,112 in our English list, against #38,658 for "tui". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tui" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #273,666 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tour" and "tui" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tuft vs tui". 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 #273,666 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