talevsteveWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#40,352
“tale” frequency rank
#293
“teve” frequency rank
40645
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tale teve
Definition discurso, fala terceira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do verbo ter

Letter map: tale vs teve

Shared letters muted; letters that set tale and teve apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
tale
4 ch
teve

Grammar separator: tale vs teve

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tale is anoun and teveaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40645, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tale is recorded at frequency rank #40,352, classified as anoun, pronounced /taːlə/, [ˈtˢæːlə]. teve is at rank #293, 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 40645, this pair ranks #25,424 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tale vs teve

Shared letters: et. Private to "tale": al. Private to "teve": v.

"tale" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "teve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • taleatle · tael · talle · tlae · ttale
  • teveetve · teev · tevve · tteve · tvee

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tale" for "teve" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tale" is a noun and "teve" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "tale" or "teve"?
"teve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #293 in our Portuguese list, against #40,352 for "tale". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "tale" and "teve".

  • Full dictionary entry for "tale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "teve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,424 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tale" and "teve" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "talão vs tale". 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 #25,424 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