temvstetaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#33
“tem” frequency rank
#34,947
“teta” frequency rank
34980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tem teta
Definition terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo ter mama; úbere

Letter map: tem vs teta

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

3 ch
tem
4 ch
teta

Role in the sentence - tem and teta

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tem is averb and tetaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tem is recorded at frequency rank #33, classified as averb. teta is at rank #34,947, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈte.tɐ/.

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 34980, this pair ranks #32,160 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tem vs teta

Shared letters: et. Private to "tem": m. Private to "teta": a.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tetaetta · teat · tetta · ttea · tteta

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tem" and "teta" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tem" is a verb and "teta" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "tem" vs "teta" - which ranks higher?
"tem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33 in our Portuguese list, against #34,947 for "teta". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "tem" vs "teta" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "teta" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,160 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tem" and "teta" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "teta vs trema". 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 #32,160 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