Which to use
“told” is a noun and “took” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,938
- “told” frequency rank
- #40,361
- “took” frequency rank
- 70299
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | told | took |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | taxa; tarifa (imposto cobrado sobre bens importados ou, em casos mais raros, exportados) | pretérito do verbo take |
Where the eye mixes told and took
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: told vs took
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: told is /tɔl/, [tˢʌlˀ], [ˈtʌlˀ] 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70299, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
told is recorded at frequency rank #29,938, classified as anoun, pronounced /tɔl/, [tˢʌlˀ], [ˈtʌlˀ]. 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 70299, this pair ranks #3,665 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of told vs took
Shared letters: ot. Private to "told": dl. Private to "took": k.
"told" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "took" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "told" and "took" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "told" or "took"?
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 "told" 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 #3,665 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "told" 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 #3,665 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.