toscovstoucaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tosco is a adjective, touca is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#33,210
“tosco” frequency rank
#28,398
“touca” frequency rank
61608
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tosco touca
Definition que não é lapidado, polido, etc.; bruto, rústico pano leve que cobre o cabelo, usado por mulheres

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set tosco and touca apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

5 ch
tosco
5 ch
touca

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tosco is /ˈtoʃ.ku/ while touca is /ˈtow.kɐ/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61608, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tosco is recorded at frequency rank #33,210, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈtoʃ.ku/. touca is at rank #28,398, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtow.kɐ/.

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 61608, this pair ranks #7,058 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tosco vs touca

Shared letters: cot. Private to "tosco": s. Private to "touca": au.

"tosco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "touca" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • toscootsco · tocso · toscco · tosoc · tossco · tsoco · ttosco
  • toucaotuca · tocua · touac · toucca · ttouca · tuoca

Frequency comparison

tosco#33,210
touca#28,398

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tosco" and "touca" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tosco" is an adjective and "touca" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tosco" or "touca"?
"touca" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,398 in our Portuguese list, against #33,210 for "tosco". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering tosco vs touca

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “tosco”; for a noun, it's “touca”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “tosco” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list