tocavstouchWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“toca” and “touch” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,545
“toca” frequency rank
#12,156
“touch” frequency rank
14701
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature toca touch
Definition buraco, natural ou aberto por alguns animais (roedores, aves, desdentados, etc.), usado como abrigo em árvores, solo, pedras ou outros ambientes (como a casa de troncos do castor) toque

Where the eye mixes toca and touch

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
toca
5 ch
touch

Why the eye confuses toca with touch

A purely visual mix-up. toca (/ˈtɔ.kɐ/) and touch (/tʌtʃ/, [tʰʌtʃ]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14701, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

toca is recorded at frequency rank #2,545, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɔ.kɐ/. touch is at rank #12,156, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tʌtʃ/, [tʰʌtʃ].

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 14701, this pair ranks #57,299 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of toca vs touch

Shared letters: cot. Private to "toca": a. Private to "touch": hu.

"toca" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "touch" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tocaotca · tcoa · toac · tocca · ttoca
  • touchotuch · tocuh · toucch · touchh · touhc · ttouch · tuoch

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "toca" for "touch" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈtɔ.kɐ/ versus /tʌtʃ/, [tʰʌtʃ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "toca" or "touch"?
"toca" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,545 in our Portuguese list, against #12,156 for "touch". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "toca" and "touch" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "toca" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "touch" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,299 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "toca" and "touch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "touch vs tous". 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 #57,299 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