tomovstosaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#6,352
“tomo” frequency rank
#47,644
“tosa” frequency rank
53996
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tomo tosa
Definition volume de obra impressa ou manuscrita falar, conversar

Letter map: tomo vs tosa

Shared letters muted; letters that set tomo and tosa apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. tomo and tosa follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
tomo
4 ch
tosa

Part-of-speech tell for tomo / tosa

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tomo 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 53996, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tomo is recorded at frequency rank #6,352, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈto.mu/. 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 53996, this pair ranks #11,634 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tomo vs tosa

Shared letters: ot. Private to "tomo": m. Private to "tosa": as.

"tomo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tosa" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tomo ← otmo · tmoo · tommo · toom · ttomo
  • tosa ← otsa · toas · tossa · tsoa · ttosa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tomo" for "tosa" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tomo" is a noun and "tosa" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tomo" or "tosa"?
"tomo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,352 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.

Useful next steps

You've compared "tomo" and "tosa". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tomo" 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 #11,634 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tomo" 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 #11,634 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