tivevstrueWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tive is a verb, true is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#730
“tive” frequency rank
#9,418
“true” frequency rank
10148
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tive true
Definition primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo do verbo ter verdadeiro, verídico

Letter map: tive vs true

Shared letters muted; letters that set tive and true apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
tive
4 ch
true

Part-of-speech tell for tive / true

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tive is averb and trueanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10148, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tive is recorded at frequency rank #730, classified as averb. true is at rank #9,418, tagged as anadj, pronounced /truː/.

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 10148, this pair ranks #63,069 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of tive vs true

Shared letters: et. Private to "tive": iv. Private to "true": ru.

"tive" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "true" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tiveitve · tiev · tivve · ttive · tvie
  • truertue · treu · trrue · ttrue · ture

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tive" and "true" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tive" is a verb and "true" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "tive" vs "true" - which ranks higher?
"tive" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #730 in our Portuguese list, against #9,418 for "true". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "tive" vs "true" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tive" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "true" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #63,069 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tive" and "true" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tique vs true". 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 #63,069 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