thou vs tom, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#44,777
“thou” frequency rank: #2,600
“tom” frequency rank: 47377
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	thou	tom
Definition	Écluse en pierre ou en béton permettant de vider lentement les étangs de la Dombes dans l'Ain.	Abréviation courante de tom-tom (instrument de percussion).

Where the eye mixes thou and tom

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

4 ch

thou

3 ch

tom

Look-alike desk: thou vs tom

A purely visual mix-up. thou (\tu\) and tom (\tɔm\) 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 47377, 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\. tom is at rank #2,600, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tɔm\.

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 47377, this pair ranks #187,465 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thou vs tom

Shared letters: ot. Private to "thou": hu. Private to "tom": m.

"thou" · 4 letters · shape CCVV · "tom" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

thou ← htou · thhou · thuo · tohu · tthou

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "thou" for "tom" ever safe?

No. They are said differently (\tu\ versus \tɔm\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

Frequency check: "thou" vs "tom" - which ranks higher?

"tom" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,600 in our French list, against #44,777 for "thou". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "thou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tom" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #187,465 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"thou" and "tom" 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 #187,465 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.