tie vs to, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#22,479
“tie” frequency rank: #164
“to” frequency rank: 22643
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	tie	to
Definition	aquele	marca o verbo seguinte como infinitivo

Letter map: tie vs to

Shared letters muted; letters that set tie and to apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

tie

2 ch

Role in the sentence - tie and to

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tie is apronoun and toaparticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22643, 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/. to is at rank #164, tagged as aparticle.

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 22643, this pair ranks #47,355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tie vs to

Shared letters: t. Private to "tie": ei. Private to "to": o.

"tie" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "to" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tie" and "to" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tie" is a pronoun and "to" a particle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tie" or "to" show up more?

"to" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #164 in our Portuguese list, against #22,479 for "tie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "tie" and "to".

Full dictionary entry for "tie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "to" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #47,355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"tie" and "to" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tie vs tique". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #47,355 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.