tainhavstenhaWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tainha is a noun, tenha is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tainha” is a noun and “tenha” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,633
“tainha” frequency rank
#369
“tenha” frequency rank
48002
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tainha tenha
Definition peixe da família dos mugilídeos, também chamado fataça, mugem, etc. primeira pessoa do singular do presente do conjuntivo do verbo ter

Letter map: tainha vs tenha

Shared letters muted; letters that set tainha and tenha apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
tainha
5 ch
tenha

Part-of-speech tell for tainha / tenha

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tainha is anoun and tenhaaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48002, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tainha is recorded at frequency rank #47,633, classified as anoun, pronounced /tɐ.ˈi.ɲɐ/. tenha is at rank #369, tagged as averb.

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 48002, this pair ranks #17,223 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tainha vs tenha

Shared letters: ahnt. Private to "tainha": i. Private to "tenha": e.

"tainha" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "tenha" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tainhaatinha · taihna · tainah · tainhha · tainnha · taniha · tianha · ttainha
  • tenhaetnha · tehna · tenah · tenhha · tennha · tneha · ttenha

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tainha" for "tenha" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tainha" is a noun and "tenha" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tainha" or "tenha"?
"tenha" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #369 in our Portuguese list, against #47,633 for "tainha". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "tainha" and "tenha". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tainha" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tenha" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,223 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tainha" and "tenha" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tainha vs trinca". 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 #17,223 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list