teufvsthugTell them apart

Which to use

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

#34,327
“teuf” frequency rank
#48,229
“thug” frequency rank
82556
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature teuf thug
Definition Fête. Membre d’une secte indienne qui pratiquait la strangulation rituelle.

Where the eye mixes teuf and thug

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
teuf
4 ch
thug

Visual trap between teuf and thug

A purely visual mix-up. teuf (\tœf\) and thug (\tœɡ\) 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 82556, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

teuf is recorded at frequency rank #34,327, classified as anoun, pronounced \tœf\. thug is at rank #48,229, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tœɡ\.

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 82556, this pair ranks #16,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of teuf vs thug

Shared letters: tu. Private to "teuf": ef. Private to "thug": gh.

"teuf" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "thug" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • teufetuf · tefu · teuff · tteuf · tuef
  • thughtug · thgu · thhug · thugg · tthug · tuhg

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "teuf" and "thug" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\tœf\ versus \tœɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "teuf" vs "thug" - which ranks higher?
"teuf" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,327 in our French list, against #48,229 for "thug". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "teuf" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thug" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,497 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "teuf" and "thug" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thug vs tun". 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 #16,497 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