Which to use
“dear” is an adjective and “debas” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #39,148
- “dear” frequency rank
- #29,580
- “debas” frequency rank
- 68728
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dear | debas |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Querido. | Segunda persona del singular (tú) del presente de subjuntivo de deber. |
Where the eye mixes dear and debas
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dear runs 4 letters (CVVC) against debas's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between dear and debas
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dear is /dɪə/ while debas is [ˈd̪eβ̞as]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68728, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dear is recorded at frequency rank #39,148, classified as anadj, pronounced /dɪə/. debas is at rank #29,580, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈd̪eβ̞as].
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 68728, this pair ranks #33,743 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of dear vs debas
Shared letters: ade. Private to "dear": r. Private to "debas": bs.
"dear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "debas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dear" for "debas" ever safe?
In ordinary Spanish text, does "dear" or "debas" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "dear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "debas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #33,743 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dear" and "debas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dear vs Deva". 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 #33,743 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.