tousvstunWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tous is a adjective, tun is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tous” is an adjective and “tun” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#79
“tous” frequency rank
#49,414
“tun” frequency rank
49493
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tous tun
Definition Masculin pluriel de tout. Craie glauconieuse.

Where the eye mixes tous and tun

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

4 ch
tous
3 ch
tun

Visual trap between tous and tun

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tous is \tu\ while tun is \tyn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49493, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tous is recorded at frequency rank #79, classified as anadj, pronounced \tu\. tun is at rank #49,414, tagged as anoun, pronounced \tyn\.

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 49493, this pair ranks #170,163 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tous vs tun

Shared letters: tu. Private to "tous": os. Private to "tun": n.

"tous" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "tun" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tousotus · tosu · touss · ttous · tuos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tous" and "tun" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tous" is an adjective and "tun" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "tous" or "tun" show up more?
"tous" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #79 in our French list, against #49,414 for "tun". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tun" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #170,163 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tous" and "tun" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tif 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

Confusion rank #170,163 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