todovstoneConfusable pair

Quick tell: todo is a adjective, tone is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“todo” is an adjective and “tone” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#48,831
“todo” frequency rank
#44,780
“tone” frequency rank
93611
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature todo tone
Definition Entier, total, tout. Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de tonen.

Where the eye mixes todo and tone

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. todo and tone follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
todo
4 ch
tone

Visual trap between todo and tone

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: todo is [ˈto.ðo] while tone is \ˈtoːnə\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 93611, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

todo is recorded at frequency rank #48,831, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈto.ðo]. tone is at rank #44,780, tagged as averb, pronounced \ˈtoːnə\.

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 93611, this pair ranks #2,152 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of todo vs tone

Shared letters: ot. Private to "todo": d. Private to "tone": en.

"todo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tone" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • todo ← otdo · tdoo · toddo · tood · ttodo
  • tone ← otne · tnoe · toen · ttone

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "todo" and "tone" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "todo" is an adjective and "tone" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "todo" or "tone" show up more?
"tone" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,780 in our French list, against #48,831 for "todo". 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 "todo" and "tone" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "todo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,152 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "todo" and "tone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tad vs todo". 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 #2,152 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