tevstiveConfusable pair

Quick tell: te is a pronoun, tive is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“te” is a pronoun and “tive” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#59
“te” frequency rank
#730
“tive” frequency rank
789
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature te tive
Definition a ti primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo do verbo ter

Letter map: te vs tive

Shared letters muted; letters that set te and tive apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
te
4 ch
tive

Role in the sentence - te and tive

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: te is apronoun and tiveaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 789, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

te is recorded at frequency rank #59, classified as apron, pronounced /tɨ/. tive is at rank #730, 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 789, this pair ranks #74,866 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of te vs tive

Shared letters: et. Private to "te": -. Private to "tive": iv.

"te" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "tive" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tiveitve · tiev · tivve · ttive · tvie

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "te" and "tive" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "te" is a pronoun and "tive" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "te" or "tive" show up more?
"te" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #59 in our Portuguese list, against #730 for "tive". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "te" vs "tive" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "te" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,866 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "te" and "tive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tique vs tive". 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 #74,866 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