tochavstouchWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#10,975
“tocha” frequency rank
#12,156
“touch” frequency rank
23131
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tocha touch
Definition vela de cera, grande e grossa; brandão. toque

Where the eye mixes tocha and touch

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
tocha
5 ch
touch

Visual trap between tocha and touch

A purely visual mix-up. tocha (/ˈto.ʃɐ/.) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tocha is recorded at frequency rank #10,975, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈto.ʃɐ/.. 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 23131, this pair ranks #46,749 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tocha vs touch

Shared letters: chot. Private to "tocha": a. Private to "touch": u.

"tocha" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "touch" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tochaotcha · tcoha · tocah · toccha · tochha · tohca · ttocha
  • touchotuch · tocuh · toucch · touchh · touhc · ttouch · tuoch

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tocha" for "touch" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈto.ʃɐ/. versus /tʌtʃ/, [tʰʌtʃ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "tocha" or "touch"?
"tocha" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,975 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tocha" 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 #46,749 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tocha" and "touch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tocha 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 #46,749 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