tordvstoutWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tord is a verb, tout is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tord” is a verb and “tout” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,800
“tord” frequency rank
#48
“tout” frequency rank
10848
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tord tout
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de tordre. Qui comprend l’intégrité, l’entièreté, la totalité d’une chose considérée par rapport au nombre, à l’étendue ou à l’intensité de l’énergie.

Where the eye mixes tord and tout

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

4 ch
tord
4 ch
tout

Why the eye confuses tord with tout

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tord is \tɔʁ\ while tout is \tu\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10848, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tord is recorded at frequency rank #10,800, classified as averb, pronounced \tɔʁ\. tout is at rank #48, tagged as anadj, 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 10848, this pair ranks #411,442 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tord vs tout

Shared letters: ot. Private to "tord": dr. Private to "tout": u.

"tord" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "tout" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tordotrd · todr · tordd · torrd · trod · ttord
  • toutotut · totu · toutt · ttout · tuot

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tord" for "tout" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tord" is a verb and "tout" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "tord" or "tout" show up more?
"tout" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48 in our French list, against #10,800 for "tord". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tord" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tout" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #411,442 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tord" and "tout" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tord vs turf". 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 #411,442 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