telhavstenhoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#24,173
“telha” frequency rank
#90
“tenho” frequency rank
24263
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature telha tenho
Definition peça de barro cozido ou de outro material (pedra, cimento-amianto, metal, vidro, plástico, madeira etc.), usado na cobertura de casas e outros edifícios primeira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo ter

Letter map: telha vs tenho

Shared letters muted; letters that set telha and tenho apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
telha
5 ch
tenho

Role in the sentence - telha and tenho

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: telha is anoun and tenhoaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24263, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

telha is recorded at frequency rank #24,173, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɐj.ʎɐ/. tenho is at rank #90, 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 24263, this pair ranks #45,403 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of telha vs tenho

Shared letters: eht. Private to "telha": al. Private to "tenho": no.

"telha" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "tenho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • telhaetlha · tehla · telah · telhha · tellha · tleha · ttelha
  • tenhoetnho · tehno · tenhho · tennho · tenoh · tneho · ttenho

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "telha" and "tenho" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "telha" is a noun and "tenho" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "telha" vs "tenho" - which ranks higher?
"tenho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #90 in our Portuguese list, against #24,173 for "telha". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "telha" and "tenho". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "telha" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tenho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,403 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "telha" and "tenho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "telha vs tralha". 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 #45,403 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