Which to use
“team” is a noun and “tear” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #203
- “team” frequency rank
- #3,985
- “tear” frequency rank
- 4188
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | team | tear |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A set of draught animals, such as two horses in front of a carriage. | To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate. |
Where the eye mixes team and tear
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: team is /tiːm/ while tear is /tɛə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - m in “team” becomes r in “tear”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4188, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
team is recorded at frequency rank #203, classified as anoun, pronounced /tiːm/. tear is at rank #3,985, tagged as averb, pronounced /tɛə/.
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 4188, this pair ranks #519,719 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of team vs tear
Shared letters: aet. Private to "team": m. Private to "tear": r.
"team" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "tear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC