tendãovstenhoWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#32,401
“tendão” frequency rank
#90
“tenho” frequency rank
32491
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tendão tenho
Definition cordão fibroso, formado por tecido conjuntivo, graças ao qual os músculos se inserem nos ossos ou nos outros órgãos primeira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo ter

Letter map: tendão vs tenho

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

6 ch
tendão
5 ch
tenho

Role in the sentence - tendão and tenho

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tendão is anoun and tenhoaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32491, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tendão is recorded at frequency rank #32,401, classified as anoun, pronounced /tẽ.ˈdɐ̃w̃/. tenho is at rank #90, 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 32491, this pair ranks #35,302 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tendão vs tenho

Shared letters: enot. Private to "tendão": dã. Private to "tenho": h.

"tendão" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "tenho" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tenho ← etnho · tehno · tenhho · tennho · tenoh · tneho · ttenho

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tendão" for "tenho" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tendão" is a noun and "tenho" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "tendão" vs "tenho" - which ranks higher?
"tenho" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #90 in our Portuguese list, against #32,401 for "tendão". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "tendão" and "tenho".

  • Full dictionary entry for "tendão" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tenho" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #35,302 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tendão" and "tenho" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tendão 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 #35,302 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