then vs these, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“then” is an adverb and “these” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,204
“then” frequency rank: #18,727
“these” frequency rank: 36931
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	then	these
Definition	então, aí. daí	vide tese

Letter map: then vs these

Shared letters muted; letters that set then and these apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch

then

5 ch

these

Role in the sentence - then and these

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: then is anadverb and theseanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36931, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

then is recorded at frequency rank #18,204, classified as anadv, pronounced /ˈðɛn/. these is at rank #18,727, tagged as anoun.

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 36931, this pair ranks #29,785 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of then vs these

Shared letters: eht. Private to "then": n. Private to "these": s.

"then" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "these" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

then ← hten · tehn · thenn · thhen · thne · tthen
these ← htese · tehse · thees · thesse · thhese · thsee · tthese

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "then" and "these" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "then" is an adverb and "these" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "then" vs "these" - which ranks higher?

"then" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,204 in our Portuguese list, against #18,727 for "these". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "then" and "these". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "then" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "these" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #29,785 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"then" and "these" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "then vs thorn". 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 #29,785 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.