ThomvstoeTell them apart

Quick tell: Thom is a name, toe is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#39,071
“Thom” frequency rank
#47,652
“toe” frequency rank
86723
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Thom toe
Definition Nom de famille. Doigt de pied, orteil.

Where the eye mixes Thom and toe

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

4 ch
Thom
3 ch
toe

Why the eye confuses Thom with toe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Thom is \tom\ while toe is \təʊ\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86723, 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\. toe is at rank #47,652, tagged as anoun, pronounced \təʊ\.

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 86723, this pair ranks #9,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Thom vs toe

Shared letters: ot. Private to "Thom": hm. Private to "toe": e.

"Thom" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "toe" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Thom" and "toe" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Thom" is a name and "toe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Thom" or "toe"?
"Thom" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,071 in our French list, against #47,652 for "toe". 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 "Thom" and "toe" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Thom" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "toe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Thom" and "toe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif vs toe". 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 #9,259 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