Which to use
“tôle” and “type” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #16,762
- “tôle” frequency rank
- #394
- “type” frequency rank
- 17156
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tôle | type |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Plaque de métal laminé, de fine épaisseur utilisé pour la construction, l’automobile, l’aéronautique. | Modèle, figure originale que l’on considère comme l’empreinte ou reflet d’un concept. |
Where the eye mixes tôle and type
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. tôle and type follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses tôle with type
A purely visual mix-up. tôle (\tol\) and type (\tip\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17156, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tôle is recorded at frequency rank #16,762, classified as anoun, pronounced \tol\. type is at rank #394, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tip\.
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 17156, this pair ranks #384,523 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of tôle vs type
Shared letters: et. Private to "tôle": lô. Private to "type": py.
"tôle" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "type" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- type ← tpye · ttype · tyep · typpe · tyype · ytpe
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "tôle" and "type" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "tôle" vs "type" - 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 "tôle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "type" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #384,523 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tôle" and "type" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "token vs tôle". 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 #384,523 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.