Which to use
“till” and “trial” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,617
- “till” frequency rank
- #34,788
- “trial” frequency rank
- 71405
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | till | trial |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Graine oléagineuse venant de l’Inde. | Ténor léger dans l’opéra-comique. |
Where the eye mixes till and trial
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. till runs 4 letters (CVCC) against trial's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between till and trial
A purely visual mix-up. till (\til\) and trial (\tʁi.jal\) 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 71405, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
till is recorded at frequency rank #36,617, classified as anoun, pronounced \til\. trial is at rank #34,788, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tʁi.jal\.
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 71405, this pair ranks #47,668 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of till vs trial
Shared letters: ilt. Private to "till": -. Private to "trial": ar.
"till" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "trial" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "till" for "trial" ever safe?
Which is more common, "till" or "trial"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "till" and "trial" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "till" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "trial" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #47,668 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "till" and "trial" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif vs till". 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 #47,668 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.