tolo vs tom, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#17,929
“tolo” frequency rank: #1,262
“tom” frequency rank: 19191
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	tolo	tom
Definition	sem inteligência ou sem juízo	qualquer som, no que se refere à sua amplitude, fonte, potência, etc.:

Letter map: tolo vs tom

Shared letters muted; letters that set tolo and tom apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

tolo

3 ch

tom

Part-of-speech tell for tolo / tom

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tolo is anadjective and tomanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19191, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tolo is recorded at frequency rank #17,929, classified as anadj. tom is at rank #1,262, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtõ/.

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 19191, this pair ranks #51,608 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tolo vs tom

Shared letters: ot. Private to "tolo": l. Private to "tom": m.

"tolo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "tom" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

tolo ← otlo · tloo · tollo · ttolo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tolo" for "tom" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "tolo" vs "tom" - which ranks higher?

"tom" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,262 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.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "tolo" and "tom".

Full dictionary entry for "tolo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tom" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #51,608 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"tolo" and "tom" 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 #51,608 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.