teamvstemWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“team” and “tem” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#6,238
“team” frequency rank
#46,838
“tem” frequency rank
53076
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature team tem
Definition Equipo (grupo de personas). Escalón.

Where the eye mixes team and tem

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
team
3 ch
tem

Why the eye confuses team with tem

A purely visual mix-up. team (/ti:m/) and tem (/tem/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53076, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

team is recorded at frequency rank #6,238, classified as anoun, pronounced /ti:m/. tem is at rank #46,838, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tem/.

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 53076, this pair ranks #89,615 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of team vs tem

Shared letters: emt. Private to "team": a. Private to "tem": -.

"team" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "tem" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • teametam · taem · teamm · tteam

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "team" and "tem" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ti:m/ versus /tem/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "team" or "tem"?
"team" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,238 in our Spanish list, against #46,838 for "tem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "team" and "tem" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "team" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #89,615 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "team" and "tem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tem vs tomb". 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 #89,615 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list