Which to use
“to” is a particle and “took” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #164
- “to” frequency rank
- #40,361
- “took” frequency rank
- 40525
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | to | took |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | marca o verbo seguinte como infinitivo | pretérito do verbo take |
Letter map: to vs took
Shared letters muted; letters that set to and took apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for to / took
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: to is aparticle and tookaverb. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “to” sits inside “took”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40525, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
to is recorded at frequency rank #164, classified as aparticle. took is at rank #40,361, tagged as averb, pronounced /tʊk/.
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 40525, this pair ranks #25,561 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of to vs took
Shared letters: ot. Private to "to": -. Private to "took": k.
"to" · 2 letters · shape CV · "took" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- took ← otok · tok · toko · tookk · ttook
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "to" and "took" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "to" or "took"?
After this comparison
Pair "to" vs "took" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "to" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "took" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #25,561 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "to" and "took" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "took vs tosa". 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 #25,561 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.