toldvstosaConfusable pair

Quick tell: told is a noun, tosa is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“told” is a noun and “tosa” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,938
“told” frequency rank
#47,644
“tosa” frequency rank
77582
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature told tosa
Definition taxa; tarifa (imposto cobrado sobre bens importados ou, em casos mais raros, exportados) falar, conversar

Letter map: told vs tosa

Shared letters muted; letters that set told and tosa apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. told (CVCC) and tosa (CVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
told
4 ch
tosa

Role in the sentence - told and tosa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: told is anoun and tosaaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77582, 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]. tosa is at rank #47,644, tagged as averb.

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 77582, this pair ranks #1,847 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of told vs tosa

Shared letters: ot. Private to "told": dl. Private to "tosa": as.

"told" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "tosa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • told ← otld · tlod · todl · toldd · tolld · ttold
  • tosa ← otsa · toas · tossa · tsoa · ttosa

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "told" and "tosa" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "told" is a noun and "tosa" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "told" or "tosa"?
"told" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,938 in our Portuguese list, against #47,644 for "tosa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "told" vs "tosa" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "told" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tosa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,847 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "told" and "tosa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tosa vs tuna". 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 #1,847 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