tecovstemWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#43,185
“teco” frequency rank
#33
“tem” frequency rank
43218
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature teco tem
Definition tiro de arma de fogo terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo ter

Letter map: teco vs tem

Shared letters muted; letters that set teco and tem apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
teco
3 ch
tem

Grammar separator: teco vs tem

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: teco is anoun and temaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43218, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

teco is recorded at frequency rank #43,185, classified as anoun. tem is at rank #33, 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 43218, this pair ranks #22,448 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of teco vs tem

Shared letters: et. Private to "teco": co. Private to "tem": m.

"teco" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tem" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tecoetco · tceo · tecco · teoc · tteco

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "teco" and "tem" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "teco" is a noun and "tem" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "teco" or "tem" show up more?
"tem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33 in our Portuguese list, against #43,185 for "teco". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "teco" and "tem". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "teco" 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 #22,448 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "teco" and "tem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "teco vs tufo". 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 #22,448 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