tourvstumourConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#1,112
“tour” frequency rank
#17,510
“tumour” frequency rank
18622
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tour tumour
Definition A journey through a particular building, estate, country, etc. Commonwealth standard spelling of tumor.

Letter map: tour vs tumour

Shared letters muted; letters that set tour and tumour apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. tour runs 4 letters (CVVC) against tumour's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
tour
6 ch
tumour

Pair insight - tour / tumour

tour and tumour 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 differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18622, 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)/. tumour is at rank #17,510, 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 18622, this pair ranks #443,677 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tour vs tumour

Shared letters: ortu. Private to "tour": -. Private to "tumour": m.

"tour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "tumour" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tour ← otur · toru · tourr · ttour · tuor
  • tumour ← tmuour · ttumour · tummour · tumoru · tumourr · tumuor · tuomur · utmour

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tour" and "tumour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "tour" or "tumour" show up more?
"tour" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,112 in our English list, against #17,510 for "tumour". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "tour" and "tumour".

  • Full dictionary entry for "tour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tumour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #443,677 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tour" and "tumour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Toth vs tour". 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 #443,677 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