tacosvstamisWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“tacos” and “tamis” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#25,146
“tacos” frequency rank
#37,577
“tamis” frequency rank
62723
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tacos tamis
Definition Galette repliée sur elle-même en forme rectangulaire et grillée, contenant toujours une garniture qui est le plus souvent à base de viande, de frites et de sauce. Sorte de crible, de sas qui sert à passer des matières pulvérulentes, les liquides troubles, etc.

Where the eye mixes tacos and tamis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tacos and tamis follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
tacos
5 ch
tamis

Look-alike desk: tacos vs tamis

A purely visual mix-up. tacos (\ta.kos\) and tamis (\ta.mi\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62723, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tacos is recorded at frequency rank #25,146, classified as anoun, pronounced \ta.kos\. tamis is at rank #37,577, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ta.mi\.

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 62723, this pair ranks #85,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tacos vs tamis

Shared letters: ast. Private to "tacos": co. Private to "tamis": im.

"tacos" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "tamis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tacos ← atcos · taccos · tacoss · tacso · taocs · tcaos · ttacos
  • tamis ← atmis · taims · tamiss · tammis · tamsi · tmais · ttamis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tacos" for "tamis" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ta.kos\ versus \ta.mi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tacos" or "tamis"?
"tacos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,146 in our French list, against #37,577 for "tamis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tacos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tamis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,648 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tacos" and "tamis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tamis vs tari". 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 #85,648 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