talusvstonusConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#25,508
“talus” frequency rank
#35,755
“tonus” frequency rank
61263
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature talus tonus
Definition Pente, inclinaison. Tension, contraction légère et permanente, tenue des muscles.

Where the eye mixes talus and tonus

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

5 ch
talus
5 ch
tonus

Visual trap between talus and tonus

A purely visual mix-up. talus (\ta.ly\) and tonus (\tɔ.nys\) 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 61263, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talus is recorded at frequency rank #25,508, classified as anoun, pronounced \ta.ly\. tonus is at rank #35,755, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tɔ.nys\.

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 61263, this pair ranks #93,190 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of talus vs tonus

Shared letters: stu. Private to "talus": al. Private to "tonus": no.

"talus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "tonus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • talus ← atlus · tallus · talsu · taluss · tauls · tlaus · ttalus
  • tonus ← otnus · tnous · tonnus · tonsu · tonuss · touns · ttonus

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "talus" for "tonus" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ta.ly\ versus \tɔ.nys\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "talus" vs "tonus" - which ranks higher?
"talus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,508 in our French list, against #35,755 for "tonus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "talus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tonus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #93,190 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "talus" and "tonus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tonus vs trônes". 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 #93,190 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