tungvsturnsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tung is a noun, turns is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tung” is a noun and “turns” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,619
“tung” frequency rank
#1,804
“turns” frequency rank
26423
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tung turns
Definition Obsolete spelling of tongue, both as language and as part of the body. third-person singular simple present indicative of turn

Letter map: tung vs turns

Shared letters muted; letters that set tung and turns apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
tung
5 ch
turns

Part-of-speech tell for tung / turns

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tung is anoun and turnsaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26423, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tung is recorded at frequency rank #24,619, classified as anoun. turns is at rank #1,804, tagged as averb, pronounced /tɝnz/.

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 26423, this pair ranks #386,808 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tung vs turns

Shared letters: ntu. Private to "tung": g. Private to "turns": rs.

"tung" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "turns" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tungtnug · ttung · tugn · tungg · tunng · utng
  • turnstruns · tturns · tunrs · turnns · turnss · turrns · tursn · utrns

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tung" and "turns" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tung" is a noun and "turns" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tung" or "turns"?
"turns" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,804 in our English list, against #24,619 for "tung". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "tung" and "turns".

  • Full dictionary entry for "tung" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "turns" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #386,808 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tung" and "turns" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tung vs twang". 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 #386,808 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