TengvstinkTell them apart

Quick tell: Teng is a name, tink is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Teng” is a name and “tink” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,214
“Teng” frequency rank
#40,928
“tink” frequency rank
87142
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Teng tink
Definition A surname from Hokkien. To emit a high-pitched sharp or metallic noise.

Letter map: Teng vs tink

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

4 ch
Teng
4 ch
tink

Part-of-speech tell for Teng / tink

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Teng is aname and tinkaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 87142, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Teng is recorded at frequency rank #46,214, classified as aname. tink is at rank #40,928, tagged as averb, pronounced /tɪŋk/.

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 87142, this pair ranks #8,005 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Teng vs tink

Shared letters: nt. Private to "Teng": eg. Private to "tink": ik.

"Teng" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "tink" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Teng ← etng · tegn · tengg · tenng · tneg · tteng
  • tink ← itnk · tikn · tinkk · tinnk · tnik · ttink

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Teng" for "tink" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Teng" is a name and "tink" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "Teng" or "tink" show up more?
"tink" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,928 in our English list, against #46,214 for "Teng". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "Teng" vs "tink" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Teng" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tink" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,005 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Teng" and "tink" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Teng vs twang". 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 #8,005 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list