The genus was erected by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine in 1860 with the streak-capped antwren as the type species.[1][2] The name of the genus comes from the Ancient Greek words terēn for "soft" and oura for "tail".[3]
The genus formerly included an additional four species but these were moved to the newly erected genus Euchrepomis based on the results of a genetic study published in 2012.[5]