tangvstengoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#21,314
“tang” frequency rank
#46,588
“tengo” frequency rank
67902
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tang tengo
Definition sabor forte, penetrante (geralmente de origem externa) primeira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo tener

Letter map: tang vs tengo

Shared letters muted; letters that set tang and tengo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. tang runs 4 letters (CVCC) against tengo's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
tang
5 ch
tengo

Part-of-speech tell for tang / tengo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tang is anoun and tengoaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67902, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tang is recorded at frequency rank #21,314, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtæŋ/. tengo is at rank #46,588, 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 67902, this pair ranks #4,457 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tang vs tengo

Shared letters: gnt. Private to "tang": a. Private to "tengo": eo.

"tang" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "tengo" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tang ← atng · tagn · tangg · tanng · tnag · ttang
  • tengo ← etngo · tegno · tenggo · tenngo · tenog · tnego · ttengo

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tang" and "tengo" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tang" is a noun and "tengo" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "tang" vs "tengo" - which ranks higher?
"tang" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,314 in our Portuguese list, against #46,588 for "tengo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "tang" and "tengo". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tang" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tengo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,457 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tang" and "tengo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "teco vs tengo". 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 #4,457 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