todo vs took, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“todo” is an adjective and “took” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#111
“todo” frequency rank: #40,361
“took” frequency rank: 40472
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	todo	took
Definition	completo	pretérito do verbo take

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set todo and took apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

todo

4 ch

took

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: todo is /ˈto.du/ while took is /tʊk/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40472, 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/. 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 40472, this pair ranks #25,633 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of todo vs took

Shared letters: ot. Private to "todo": d. Private to "took": k.

"todo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "took" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

todo ← otdo · tdoo · toddo · tood · ttodo
took ← otok · tok · toko · tookk · ttook

Frequency comparison

todo#111

took#40,361

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "todo" and "took" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "todo" is an adjective and "took" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "todo" or "took"?

"todo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #111 in our Portuguese list, against #40,361 for "took". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering todo vs took

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “todo”; for a verb, it's “took”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “todo” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable