tobyvstoryWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#23,711
“toby” frequency rank
#29,176
“tory” frequency rank
52887
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature toby tory
Definition Poisson des récifs coralliens. Nom qu’on a donné en Angleterre aux partisans de Charles II, et qui depuis est resté le nom générique du parti conservateur.

Where the eye mixes toby and tory

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
toby
4 ch
tory

Look-alike desk: toby vs tory

A purely visual mix-up. toby (\tɔ.bi\) and tory (\tɔ.ʁi\) 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 a single letter - b in “toby” becomes r in “tory”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52887, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

toby is recorded at frequency rank #23,711, classified as anoun, pronounced \tɔ.bi\. tory is at rank #29,176, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tɔ.ʁi\.

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 52887, this pair ranks #144,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of toby vs tory

Shared letters: oty. Private to "toby": b. Private to "tory": r.

"toby" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tory" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tobyotby · tboy · tobby · tobyy · toyb · ttoby
  • toryotry · torry · toryy · toyr · ttory

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "toby" and "tory" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\tɔ.bi\ versus \tɔ.ʁi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "toby" or "tory"?
"toby" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,711 in our French list, against #29,176 for "tory". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "toby" and "tory" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "toby" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tory" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #144,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "toby" and "tory" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tory vs turf". 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 #144,564 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