Which to use
“thou” and “thu” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,777
- “thou” frequency rank
- #48,228
- “thu” frequency rank
- 93005
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thou | thu |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Écluse en pierre ou en béton permettant de vider lentement les étangs de la Dombes dans l'Ain. | Forme mutée de tu par spirantisation. |
Where the eye mixes thou and thu
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. thou runs 4 letters (CCVV) against thu's 3 (CCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: thou vs thu
A purely visual mix-up. thou (\tu\) and thu (\θɨː\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 93005, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thou is recorded at frequency rank #44,777, classified as anoun, pronounced \tu\. thu is at rank #48,228, tagged as anoun, pronounced \θɨː\.
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 93005, this pair ranks #2,592 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of thou vs thu
Shared letters: htu. Private to "thou": o. Private to "thu": -.
"thou" · 4 letters · shape CCVV · "thu" · 3 letters · shape CCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- thou ← htou · thhou · thuo · tohu · tthou
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "thou" and "thu" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "thou" or "thu" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "thou" and "thu" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "thou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "thu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #2,592 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thou" and "thu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thu vs tif". 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 #2,592 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.