thouvstoutConfusable pair

Quick tell: thou is a noun, tout is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“thou” is a noun and “tout” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,777
“thou” frequency rank
#48
“tout” frequency rank
44825
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature thou tout
Definition Écluse en pierre ou en béton permettant de vider lentement les étangs de la Dombes dans l'Ain. Qui comprend l’intégrité, l’entièreté, la totalité d’une chose considérée par rapport au nombre, à l’étendue ou à l’intensité de l’énergie.

Same sound, different letters: thou vs tout

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

4 ch
thou
4 ch
tout

Same sound, different spelling - thou / tout

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: thou and tout carry the same recorded pronunciation, \tu\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44825, 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\. tout is at rank #48, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tu\.

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 44825, this pair ranks #207,529 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thou vs tout

Shared letters: otu. Private to "thou": h. Private to "tout": -.

"thou" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "tout" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • thouhtou · thhou · thuo · tohu · tthou
  • toutotut · totu · toutt · ttout · tuot

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "thou" and "tout" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thou" is a noun and "tout" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "thou" or "tout"?
"tout" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48 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.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "thou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tout" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #207,529 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "thou" and "tout" 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 #207,529 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