tenvstensoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ten is a pronoun, tenso is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ten” is a pronoun and “tenso” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,094
“ten” frequency rank
#11,362
“tenso” frequency rank
21456
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ten tenso
Definition este, esta, esse, essa que está sob tensão; em que há tensão

Letter map: ten vs tenso

Shared letters muted; letters that set ten and tenso apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
ten
5 ch
tenso

Part-of-speech tell for ten / tenso

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ten is apronoun and tensoanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ten” sits inside “tenso”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21456, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ten is recorded at frequency rank #10,094, classified as apron. tenso is at rank #11,362, tagged as anadj.

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 21456, this pair ranks #48,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ten vs tenso

Shared letters: ent. Private to "ten": -. Private to "tenso": os.

"ten" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "tenso" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tensoetnso · tennso · tenos · tensso · tesno · tneso · ttenso

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ten" for "tenso" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ten" is a pronoun and "tenso" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ten" vs "tenso" - which ranks higher?
"ten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,094 in our Portuguese list, against #11,362 for "tenso". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ten" and "tenso".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tenso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #48,799 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ten" and "tenso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tengo vs tenso". 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 #48,799 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