taxvsthanWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tax is a noun, than is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tax” is a noun and “than” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,800
“tax” frequency rank
#13,187
“than” frequency rank
48987
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tax than
Definition apócope de táxi que (usado em comparações)

Letter map: tax vs than

Shared letters muted; letters that set tax and than apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. tax runs 3 letters (CVC) against than's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
tax
4 ch
than

Role in the sentence - tax and than

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tax is anoun and thanaconjunction. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48987, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tax is recorded at frequency rank #35,800, classified as anoun, pronounced /taks/. than is at rank #13,187, tagged as aconj.

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 48987, this pair ranks #16,106 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tax vs than

Shared letters: at. Private to "tax": x. Private to "than": hn.

"tax" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "than" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • than ← htan · tahn · thann · thhan · thna · tthan

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tax" for "than" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tax" is a noun and "than" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "tax" vs "than" - which ranks higher?
"than" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,187 in our Portuguese list, against #35,800 for "tax". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "tax" and "than". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tax" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "than" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #16,106 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tax" and "than" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tax vs til". 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 #16,106 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list