teckvsticeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: teck is a noun, tice is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“teck” is a noun and “tice” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,910
“teck” frequency rank
#45,913
“tice” frequency rank
91823
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature teck tice
Definition Grand arbre de la famille des verbénacées, qui croît dans l’Inde, et dont le bois imputrescible est recherché pour la construction des vaisseaux. En haut de, au sommet de (sans mouvement).

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set teck and tice apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
teck
4 ch
tice

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: teck is \tɛk\ while tice is \ˈtiʃɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91823, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

teck is recorded at frequency rank #45,910, classified as anoun, pronounced \tɛk\. tice is at rank #45,913, tagged as aprep, pronounced \ˈtiʃɛ\.

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 91823, this pair ranks #3,498 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of teck vs tice

Shared letters: cet. Private to "teck": k. Private to "tice": i.

"teck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "tice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tecketck · tcek · tecck · teckk · tekc · tteck
  • ticeitce · tcie · ticce · tiec · ttice

Frequency comparison

teck#45,910
tice#45,913

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "teck" and "tice" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "teck" is a noun and "tice" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "teck" or "tice"?
"teck" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #45,910 in our French list, against #45,913 for "tice". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering teck vs tice

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “teck”; for a preposition, it's “tice”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “teck” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list