# tells vs Tess

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### tells
*verb · IPA /tɛlz/ · frequency rank #1,740*
third-person singular simple present indicative of tell

### Tess
*name · IPA /tɛs/ · frequency rank #21,679*
A diminutive of the female given name Teresa.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/tells-vs-tess