truevsturConfusable pair

Quick tell: true is a adjective, tur is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“true” is an adjective and “tur” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#393
“true” frequency rank
#39,138
“tur” frequency rank
39531
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature true tur
Definition Conforming to the actual state of reality or fact; factually correct. Either of two species of wild goat native to Caucasus, West Caucasian tur Capra caucasica or East Caucasian tur Capra cylindricornis.

Where the eye mixes true and tur

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

4 ch
true
3 ch
tur

Visual trap between true and tur

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: true is /tɹuː/ while tur is /tʊə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39531, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

true is recorded at frequency rank #393, classified as anadj, pronounced /tɹuː/. tur is at rank #39,138, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tʊə/.

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 39531, this pair ranks #275,835 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of true vs tur

Shared letters: rtu. Private to "true": e. Private to "tur": -.

"true" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "tur" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • truertue · treu · trrue · ttrue · ture

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "true" and "tur" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "true" is an adjective and "tur" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "true" or "tur" show up more?
"true" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #393 in our English list, against #39,138 for "tur". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "true" and "tur" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "true" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #275,835 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "true" and "tur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tuft vs tur". 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 #275,835 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