touvstuéWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#17,579
“tou” frequency rank
#1,543
“tué” frequency rank
19122
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tou tué
Definition Serment. Homme, ou garçon, décédé par fait de violence.

Where the eye mixes tou and tué

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

3 ch
tou
3 ch
tué

Look-alike desk: tou vs tué

A purely visual mix-up. tou (\ˈtu:\) and tué (\tɥe\) 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 19122, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tou is recorded at frequency rank #17,579, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈtu:\. tué is at rank #1,543, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tɥe\.

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 19122, this pair ranks #374,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tou vs tué

Shared letters: tu. Private to "tou": o. Private to "tué": é.

"tou" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "tué" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tou" for "tué" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈtu:\ versus \tɥe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tou" or "tué"?
"tué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,543 in our French list, against #17,579 for "tou". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tou" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tué" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #374,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tou" and "tué" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif vs tou". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #374,885 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