tum
/tʌm/
"tum" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“tum” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #26,641) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #26,641
- frequency rank, English
- 3,151
- “T” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - shortened form of tummy
Corpus desk
Index EN-tum · tum · English
tum · rank #26,641 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #26,641
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,151
- PHOTO-FINISH Tully
Nearest frequency peer: Tully (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “tum”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- trimester
trimester
73,364 corpus weight
- Tully
Tully
73,361 corpus weight
- tum
tum
73,360 corpus weight
- Umar
Umar
73,359 corpus weight
- unfaithful
unfaithful
73,357 corpus weight
- unholy
unholy
73,356 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “tum” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tum |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /tʌm/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #26,641 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “tum”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for tum is neighbouring look-alikes ("TV", "TX", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /tʌm/. Frequency #26,641 among 3,151 “T” headwords. Gloss: "shortened form of tummy".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for tum, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TV", "TX", "Ty", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is tum, spelled T-U-M.
Definition
- 1shortened form of tummy
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how tum appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
For here am I without a crumb To satisfy a raging tum-- O what an oversight!" As he was indulging in these melancholy reflexions he came round a bend in the road, and discovered two people in the very act of having lunch.
We left the telephone, walked up two small flights of stairs, and opened the front door as, believe it or not, the car with three policemen in it was just pulling up. I mention this amazing promptitude hoping that it will be a comfort to timorous souls whose tums turn over when things go bump in the night.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tum", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).