tavstosWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ta is a determiner, tos is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ta” is a determiner and “tos” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#181
“ta” frequency rank
#48,234
“tos” frequency rank
48415
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ta tos
Definition Déterminant marquant la possession d’un objet (de genre féminin) appartenant à celui (de nombre singulier) à qui l’on parle. Élève de première année à l’École polytechnique.

Where the eye mixes ta and tos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch
ta
3 ch
tos

Why the eye confuses ta with tos

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ta is \ta\ while tos is \tos\. 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 (determiner vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48415, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ta is recorded at frequency rank #181, classified as adet, pronounced \ta\. tos is at rank #48,234, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tos\.

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 48415, this pair ranks #179,136 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ta vs tos

Shared letters: t. Private to "ta": a. Private to "tos": os.

"ta" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "tos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ta" and "tos" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ta" is a determiner and "tos" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "ta" or "tos" show up more?
"ta" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #181 in our French list, against #48,234 for "tos". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #179,136 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ta" and "tos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif vs tos". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #179,136 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list