temevstiveTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#10,093
“teme” frequency rank
#730
“tive” frequency rank
10823
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature teme tive
Definition anta; tapir, Tapirus terrestris primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo do verbo ter

Letter map: teme vs tive

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

4 ch
teme
4 ch
tive

Role in the sentence - teme and tive

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: teme is anoun and tiveaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10823, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

teme is recorded at frequency rank #10,093, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɛ.mɛ/. 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 10823, this pair ranks #62,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of teme vs tive

Shared letters: et. Private to "teme": m. Private to "tive": iv.

"teme" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tive" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • temeetme · temme · tmee · tteme
  • tiveitve · tiev · tivve · ttive · tvie

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "teme" and "tive" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "teme" is a noun and "tive" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "teme" or "tive" show up more?
"tive" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #730 in our Portuguese list, against #10,093 for "teme". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "teme" 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 #62,181 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "teme" and "tive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "teme 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 #62,181 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