talonvsToulonWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: talon is a noun, Toulon is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“talon” is a noun and “Toulon” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,252
“talon” frequency rank
#5,710
“Toulon” frequency rank
15962
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature talon Toulon
Definition Partie postérieure du pied. Commune, ville et chef-lieu de département français, situé dans le département du Var.

Where the eye mixes talon and Toulon

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. talon runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against Toulon's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
talon
6 ch
Toulon

Visual trap between talon and Toulon

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: talon is \ta.lɔ̃\ while Toulon is \tu.lɔ̃\. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15962, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talon is recorded at frequency rank #10,252, classified as anoun, pronounced \ta.lɔ̃\. Toulon is at rank #5,710, tagged as aname, pronounced \tu.lɔ̃\.

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 15962, this pair ranks #390,052 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of talon vs Toulon

Shared letters: lnot. Private to "talon": a. Private to "Toulon": u.

"talon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Toulon" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • talon ← atlon · tallon · talno · talonn · taoln · tlaon · ttalon
  • Toulon ← otulon · toluon · toullon · toulno · toulonn · touoln · ttoulon · tuolon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "talon" for "Toulon" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "talon" is a noun and "Toulon" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "talon" or "Toulon"?
"Toulon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,710 in our French list, against #10,252 for "talon". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "talon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Toulon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #390,052 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "talon" and "Toulon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "talon vs timon". 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 #390,052 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