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tens

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

4 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "tens", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "tens" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "tens" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

tens is aEnglishnoun. It means: An inexact quantity or number, typically understood to be between 10 or 20 and 100. It ranks #8,493 in English word frequency. Often confused with TN and TS.

Key facts for tens
PropertyValue
Headwordtens
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters4
Frequency rank#8,493
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of tens in English word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for tens is 4 letters long, classified as anoun. Corpus data places it at rank #8,493 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for tens, with forms such as "etns", "tenns", and "tenss". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TN", "TS", "ton", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is tens, spelled T-E-N-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    An inexact quantity or number, typically understood to be between 10 or 20 and 100.
  2. 2
    A pair of tens.
  3. 3
    The period from a year ending in 10 to a year ending in 19 (mostly referring to the 1910s or 2010s); the teens, the oneties.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: etns,tenns,tenss,tesn,tnes,ttens

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for tens

Misspelling Variants of "tens"

etns4tenns5tenss5tesn4tnes4ttens5
Misspelling Variants of "tens"

Frequency rank: #8,493 in English

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "tens"?
"tens" is spelled T-E-N-S.
What does "tens" mean?
As a noun, "tens" means: An inexact quantity or number, typically understood to be between 10 or 20 and 100.
What words are commonly confused with "tens"?
"tens" is commonly confused with "TN", "TS", "ton". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "tens" come from?
"tens" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.