Which to use
“told” is a verb and “tôles” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #45,349
- “told” frequency rank
- #36,633
- “tôles” frequency rank
- 81982
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | told | tôles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Prétérit de tell. | Pluriel de tôle. |
Where the eye mixes told and tôles
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. told runs 4 letters (CVCC) against tôles's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: told vs tôles
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: told is \təʊld\ while tôles is \tol\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81982, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
told is recorded at frequency rank #45,349, classified as averb, pronounced \təʊld\. tôles is at rank #36,633, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tol\.
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 81982, this pair ranks #17,681 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of told vs tôles
Shared letters: lt. Private to "told": do. Private to "tôles": esô.
"told" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "tôles" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- told ← otld · tlod · todl · toldd · tolld · ttold
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "told" and "tôles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "told" vs "tôles" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "told" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tôles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #17,681 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "told" and "tôles" 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 #17,681 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.