tenazvstenhasWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: tenaz is a adjective, tenhas is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tenaz” is an adjective and “tenhas” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,239
“tenaz” frequency rank
#14,973
“tenhas” frequency rank
57212
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tenaz tenhas
Definition muito aderente segunda pessoa do singular do presente do conjuntivo do verbo ter

Letter map: tenaz vs tenhas

Shared letters muted; letters that set tenaz and tenhas apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. tenaz runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against tenhas's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
tenaz
6 ch
tenhas

Part-of-speech tell for tenaz / tenhas

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tenaz is anadjective and tenhasaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57212, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tenaz is recorded at frequency rank #42,239, classified as anadj, pronounced /tɨ.ˈnaʃ/. tenhas is at rank #14,973, 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 57212, this pair ranks #9,462 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tenaz vs tenhas

Shared letters: aent. Private to "tenaz": z. Private to "tenhas": hs.

"tenaz" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "tenhas" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tenaz ← etnaz · teanz · tenazz · tennaz · tenza · tneaz · ttenaz
  • tenhas ← etnhas · tehnas · tenahs · tenhass · tenhhas · tenhsa · tennhas · tnehas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tenaz" and "tenhas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tenaz" is an adjective and "tenhas" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "tenaz" or "tenhas" show up more?
"tenhas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,973 in our Portuguese list, against #42,239 for "tenaz". 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 "tenaz" and "tenhas".

  • Full dictionary entry for "tenaz" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tenhas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,462 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tenaz" and "tenhas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tenaz 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 #9,462 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