to vs tom, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#164
“to” frequency rank: #1,262
“tom” frequency rank: 1426
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	to	tom
Definition	marca o verbo seguinte como infinitivo	qualquer som, no que se refere à sua amplitude, fonte, potência, etc.:

Letter map: to vs tom

Shared letters muted; letters that set to and tom apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

3 ch

tom

Role in the sentence - to and tom

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: to is aparticle and tomanoun. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “to” sits inside “tom”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1426, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

to is recorded at frequency rank #164, classified as aparticle. tom is at rank #1,262, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtõ/.

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 1426, this pair ranks #74,151 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of to vs tom

Shared letters: ot. Private to "to": -. Private to "tom": m.

"to" · 2 letters · shape CV · "tom" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "to" for "tom" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "to" vs "tom" - which ranks higher?

"to" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #164 in our Portuguese list, against #1,262 for "tom". 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 "to" and "tom". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "to" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tom" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #74,151 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"to" and "tom" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tom vs tosa". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #74,151 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.