tolicevstóxicoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tolice is a noun, tóxico is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tolice” is a noun and “tóxico” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,807
“tolice” frequency rank
#13,631
“tóxico” frequency rank
38438
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tolice tóxico
Definition parvoíce que envenena

Where the eye mixes tolice and tóxico

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. tolice and tóxico follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
tolice
6 ch
tóxico

Visual trap between tolice and tóxico

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tolice is /tu.ˈli.sɨ/ while tóxico is /ˈtɔ.ksi.ku/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38438, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tolice is recorded at frequency rank #24,807, classified as anoun, pronounced /tu.ˈli.sɨ/. tóxico is at rank #13,631, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈtɔ.ksi.ku/.

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 38438, this pair ranks #28,020 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tolice vs tóxico

Shared letters: ciot. Private to "tolice": el. Private to "tóxico": xó.

"tolice" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "tóxico" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tolice ← otlice · tloice · toilce · tolcie · tolicce · toliec · tollice · ttolice

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tolice" for "tóxico" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tolice" is a noun and "tóxico" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tolice" or "tóxico" show up more?
"tóxico" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,631 in our Portuguese list, against #24,807 for "tolice". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tolice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tóxico" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,020 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tolice" and "tóxico" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tolice vs tónica". 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 #28,020 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