tenhavstunaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#369
“tenha” frequency rank
#45,633
“tuna” frequency rank
46002
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tenha tuna
Definition primeira pessoa do singular do presente do conjuntivo do verbo ter água, substância líquida (H₂O)

Letter map: tenha vs tuna

Shared letters muted; letters that set tenha and tuna apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. tenha runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against tuna's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
tenha
4 ch
tuna

Part-of-speech tell for tenha / tuna

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tenha is averb and tunaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46002, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tenha is recorded at frequency rank #369, classified as averb. tuna is at rank #45,633, tagged as anoun, pronounced /tu.na/ [tu.na].

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 46002, this pair ranks #19,366 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tenha vs tuna

Shared letters: ant. Private to "tenha": eh. Private to "tuna": u.

"tenha" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "tuna" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tenha ← etnha · tehna · tenah · tenhha · tennha · tneha · ttenha
  • tuna ← tnua · ttuna · tuan · tunna · utna

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "tenha" for "tuna" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tenha" is a verb and "tuna" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "tenha" vs "tuna" - which ranks higher?
"tenha" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #369 in our Portuguese list, against #45,633 for "tuna". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "tenha" and "tuna". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tenha" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tuna" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,366 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tenha" and "tuna" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tufo vs tuna". 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 #19,366 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