Which to use
“thou” and “thym” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,777
- “thou” frequency rank
- #32,217
- “thym” frequency rank
- 76994
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thou | thym |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Écluse en pierre ou en béton permettant de vider lentement les étangs de la Dombes dans l'Ain. | Genre de plantes de la famille des Lamiacées dont l’espèce la plus connue est le Thymus vulgaris, plante aromatique et médicinale, qui est utilisée en cuisine et pour la préparation d’infusions et de décoctions. Sauvage et très répandu dans les garrigues des rives de la méditerranée, il est aussi, pour ses vertus, cultivé dans les jardins. |
Where the eye mixes thou and thym
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. thou (CCVV) and thym (CCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between thou and thym
A purely visual mix-up. thou (\tu\) and thym (\tɛ̃\) 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 76994, 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\. thym is at rank #32,217, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tɛ̃\.
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 76994, this pair ranks #29,582 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of thou vs thym
Shared letters: ht. Private to "thou": ou. Private to "thym": my.
"thou" · 4 letters · shape CCVV · "thym" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "thou" and "thym" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "thou" or "thym" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "thou" and "thym" 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 "thym" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #29,582 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thou" and "thym" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thou 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 #29,582 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.