tontevstoutsConfusable pair

Which to use

“tonte” and “touts” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#38,573
“tonte” frequency rank
#29,573
“touts” frequency rank
68146
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tonte touts
Definition Action de tondre la laine, la pelouse, etc. Pluriel de tout.

Where the eye mixes tonte and touts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tonte (CVCCV) and touts (CVVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
tonte
5 ch
touts

Visual trap between tonte and touts

A purely visual mix-up. tonte (\tɔ̃t\) and touts (\tu\) 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 68146, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tonte is recorded at frequency rank #38,573, classified as anoun, pronounced \tɔ̃t\. touts is at rank #29,573, 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 68146, this pair ranks #60,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tonte vs touts

Shared letters: ot. Private to "tonte": en. Private to "touts": su.

"tonte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "touts" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tonte ← otnte · tnote · tonet · tonnte · tontte · totne · ttonte
  • touts ← otuts · totus · toust · toutss · toutts · ttouts

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tonte" for "touts" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\tɔ̃t\ versus \tu\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tonte" or "touts"?
"touts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,573 in our French list, against #38,573 for "tonte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tonte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "touts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tonte" and "touts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tinto vs tonte". 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 #60,354 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