tenvstentoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“ten” and “tento” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#10,094
“ten” frequency rank
#4,187
“tento” frequency rank
14281
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ten tento
Definition este, esta, esse, essa este / esta / isto

Letter map: ten vs tento

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

3 ch
ten
5 ch
tento

Pair insight - ten / tento

ten and tento are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ten” sits inside “tento”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14281, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ten is recorded at frequency rank #10,094, classified as apron. tento is at rank #4,187, tagged as apron.

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 14281, this pair ranks #57,864 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ten vs tento

Shared letters: ent. Private to "ten": -. Private to "tento": o.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tentoetnto · tennto · tenot · tentto · tetno · tneto · ttento

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ten" for "tento" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ten” sits inside “tento”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "ten" vs "tento" - which ranks higher?
"tento" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,187 in our Portuguese list, against #10,094 for "ten". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "ten" vs "tento" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tento" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #57,864 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ten" and "tento" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ten vs tengo". 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 #57,864 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