tenvstokenWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ten is a adjective, token is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ten” is an adjective and “token” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,809
“ten” frequency rank
#48,832
“token” frequency rank
63641
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ten token
Definition Dix. Lexème ou lexie.

Where the eye mixes ten and token

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ten
5 ch
token

Visual trap between ten and token

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ten is \ˈtɛn\ while token is \to.kɛn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63641, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ten is recorded at frequency rank #14,809, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈtɛn\. token is at rank #48,832, tagged as anoun, pronounced \to.kɛn\.

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 63641, this pair ranks #80,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ten vs token

Shared letters: ent. Private to "ten": -. Private to "token": ko.

"ten" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "token" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tokenotken · tkoen · toekn · tokenn · tokken · tokne · ttoken

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ten" and "token" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ten" is an adjective and "token" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "ten" or "token" show up more?
"ten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,809 in our French list, against #48,832 for "token". 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 "ten" and "token" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "token" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #80,948 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ten" and "token" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "toe vs token". 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 #80,948 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