tonvstouxTell them apart

Quick tell: ton is a determiner, toux is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ton” is a determiner and “toux” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#127
“ton” frequency rank
#15,276
“toux” frequency rank
15403
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ton toux
Definition Déterminant possessif dont le possesseur est la deuxième personne du singulier et le possédé est masculin singulier. Expiration spasmodique et bruyante de l’air, accompagnée d’un mouvement convulsif du larynx et de la trachée-artère.

Where the eye mixes ton and toux

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ton
4 ch
toux

Visual trap between ton and toux

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ton is \tɔ̃\ while toux is \tu\. 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 (determiner vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15403, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ton is recorded at frequency rank #127, classified as adet, pronounced \tɔ̃\. toux is at rank #15,276, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tu\.

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 15403, this pair ranks #392,502 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ton vs toux

Shared letters: ot. Private to "ton": n. Private to "toux": ux.

"ton" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "toux" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • touxotux · touxx · toxu · ttoux · tuox

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ton" and "toux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ton" is a determiner and "toux" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ton" or "toux"?
"ton" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #127 in our French list, against #15,276 for "toux". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ton" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "toux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,502 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ton" and "toux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "toux vs tun". 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 #392,502 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