todovstoloWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#111
“todo” frequency rank
#17,929
“tolo” frequency rank
18040
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature todo tolo
Definition completo sem inteligência ou sem juízo

Letter map: todo vs tolo

Shared letters muted; letters that set todo and tolo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
todo
4 ch
tolo

Corpus notes: todo and tolo

todo and tolo are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by a single letter - d in “todo” becomes l in “tolo”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18040, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

todo is recorded at frequency rank #111, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈto.du/. tolo is at rank #17,929, tagged as anadj.

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 18040, this pair ranks #53,048 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of todo vs tolo

Shared letters: ot. Private to "todo": d. Private to "tolo": l.

"todo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tolo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • todootdo · tdoo · toddo · tood · ttodo
  • tolootlo · tloo · tollo · ttolo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "todo" for "tolo" ever safe?
No. They differ by a single letter - d in “todo” becomes l in “tolo”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "todo" vs "tolo" - which ranks higher?
"todo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #111 in our Portuguese list, against #17,929 for "tolo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "todo" and "tolo". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "todo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tolo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,048 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "todo" and "tolo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tolo vs tufo". 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 #53,048 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