tievstilWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tie is a pronoun, til is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tie” is a pronoun and “til” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,479
“tie” frequency rank
#44,136
“til” frequency rank
66615
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tie til
Definition aquele sinal diacrítico (~) utilizado para modificar a pronúncia de determinadas letras no português (indicando nasalização) e em alguns outros idiomas ( bretão ...)

Where the eye mixes tie and til

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

3 ch
tie
3 ch
til

Look-alike desk: tie vs til

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tie is /ˈtje/ while til is /ˈʧiw/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “tie” becomes l in “til”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66615, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tie is recorded at frequency rank #22,479, classified as apron, pronounced /ˈtje/. til is at rank #44,136, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈʧiw/.

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 66615, this pair ranks #4,928 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tie vs til

Shared letters: it. Private to "tie": e. Private to "til": l.

"tie" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "til" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tie" and "til" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tie" is a pronoun and "til" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tie" or "til" show up more?
"tie" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,479 in our Portuguese list, against #44,136 for "til". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "til" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,928 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tie" and "til" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tifo vs til". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #4,928 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