ternovstextoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: terno is a adjective, texto is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“terno” is an adjective and “texto” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,363
“terno” frequency rank
#680
“texto” frequency rank
12043
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature terno texto
Definition tenro conjunto palavras encadeadas formando um sentido ou conceito

Where the eye mixes terno and texto

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
terno
5 ch
texto

Visual trap between terno and texto

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: terno is /ˈtɛɾ.nu/ while texto is /ˈtɐjʃ.tu/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

terno is recorded at frequency rank #11,363, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈtɛɾ.nu/. texto is at rank #680, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɐjʃ.tu/.

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 12043, this pair ranks #60,665 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of terno vs texto

Shared letters: eot. Private to "terno": nr. Private to "texto": x.

"terno" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "texto" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ternoetrno · tenro · ternno · teron · terrno · treno · tterno
  • textoetxto · tetxo · texot · textto · texxto · ttexto · txeto

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "terno" and "texto" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "terno" is an adjective and "texto" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "terno" or "texto" show up more?
"texto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #680 in our Portuguese list, against #11,363 for "terno". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "terno" and "texto" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "terno" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "texto" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,665 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "terno" and "texto" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tengo vs terno". 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 #60,665 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