tomarvstowerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#611
“tomar” frequency rank
#21,608
“tower” frequency rank
22219
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tomar tower
Definition agarrar torre

Where the eye mixes tomar and tower

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
tomar
5 ch
tower

Visual trap between tomar and tower

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tomar is /tu.ˈmaɾ/ while tower is /ˈtaʊ.ə(ɹ)/. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22219, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tomar is recorded at frequency rank #611, classified as averb, pronounced /tu.ˈmaɾ/. tower is at rank #21,608, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtaʊ.ə(ɹ)/.

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 22219, this pair ranks #47,876 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tomar vs tower

Shared letters: ort. Private to "tomar": am. Private to "tower": ew.

"tomar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "tower" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tomarotmar · tmoar · toamr · tomarr · tommar · tomra · ttomar
  • towerotwer · toewr · towerr · towre · towwer · ttower · twoer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tomar" and "tower" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tomar" is a verb and "tower" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tomar" or "tower" show up more?
"tomar" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #611 in our Portuguese list, against #21,608 for "tower". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tomar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tower" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #47,876 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tomar" and "tower" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "topar vs tower". 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 #47,876 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