tousvstoutWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#79
“tous” frequency rank
#48
“tout” frequency rank
127
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tous tout
Definition Masculin pluriel de tout. 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.

Same sound, different letters: tous vs tout

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

4 ch
tous
4 ch
tout

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

This is the hard kind. tous and tout are pronounced identically (\tu\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - s in “tous” becomes t in “tout”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 127, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tous is recorded at frequency rank #79, classified as anadj, pronounced \tu\. 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 127, this pair ranks #440,073 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tous vs tout

Shared letters: otu. Private to "tous": s. Private to "tout": -.

"tous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "tout" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tousotus · tosu · touss · ttous · tuos
  • toutotut · totu · toutt · ttout · tuot

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tous" and "tout" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\tu\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "tous" or "tout"?
"tout" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48 in our French list, against #79 for "tous". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "tous" and "tout". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tous" 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 #440,073 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tous" and "tout" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tous 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list