Which to use
“tondu” is an adjective and “tonne” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #43,187
- “tondu” frequency rank
- #8,787
- “tonne” frequency rank
- 51974
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tondu | tonne |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Que l’on a tondu. | Unité de mesure de masse en dehors du Système international (mais dont l’usage est accepté avec le SI), valant mille kilogrammes, et dont le symbole est t. Aussi appelée tonne métrique. |
Where the eye mixes tondu and tonne
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tondu and tonne follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between tondu and tonne
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tondu is \tɔ̃.dy\ while tonne is \tɔn\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51974, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tondu is recorded at frequency rank #43,187, classified as anadj, pronounced \tɔ̃.dy\. tonne is at rank #8,787, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tɔn\.
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 51974, this pair ranks #151,064 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of tondu vs tonne
Shared letters: not. Private to "tondu": du. Private to "tonne": e.
"tondu" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "tonne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "tondu" and "tonne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "tondu" or "tonne" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "tondu" and "tonne" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "tondu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tonne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #151,064 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tondu" and "tonne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "todo vs tondu". 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 #151,064 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.