Which to use
“til” is a noun and “told” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,835
- “til” frequency rank
- #45,349
- “told” frequency rank
- 71184
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | til | told |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Tilleul. | Prétérit de tell. |
Letter map: til vs told
Shared letters muted; letters that set til and told apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Role in the sentence - til and told
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: til is anoun and toldaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71184, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
til is recorded at frequency rank #25,835, classified as anoun. told is at rank #45,349, tagged as averb, pronounced \təʊld\.
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 71184, this pair ranks #48,492 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of til vs told
Shared letters: lt. Private to "til": i. Private to "told": do.
"til" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "told" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- told ← otld · tlod · todl · toldd · tolld · ttold
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "til" and "told" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "til" or "told" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "til" and "told".
- Full dictionary entry for "til" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "told" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #48,492 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "til" and "told" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tad vs told". 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 #48,492 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.