ThomvstocConfusable pair

Quick tell: Thom is a name, toc is an onomatopoeia, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Thom” is a name and “toc” is an onomatopoeia - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,071
“Thom” frequency rank
#12,684
“toc” frequency rank
51755
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Thom toc
Definition Nom de famille. Onomatopée servant à exprimer un bruit sec, un choc.

Where the eye mixes Thom and toc

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

4 ch
Thom
3 ch
toc

Look-alike desk: Thom vs toc

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Thom is \tom\ while toc is \tɔk\. 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 (name vs onomatopoeia), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51755, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Thom is recorded at frequency rank #39,071, classified as aname, pronounced \tom\. toc is at rank #12,684, tagged as anonomatopoeia, pronounced \tɔk\.

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 51755, this pair ranks #152,706 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Thom vs toc

Shared letters: ot. Private to "Thom": hm. Private to "toc": c.

"Thom" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "toc" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Thomhtom · thhom · thmo · thomm · tohm · tthom

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Thom" and "toc" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Thom" is a name and "toc" an onomatopoeia, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Thom" or "toc" show up more?
"toc" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,684 in our French list, against #39,071 for "Thom". 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 "Thom" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "toc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #152,706 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Thom" and "toc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Thom vs tos". 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 #152,706 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