dessa
/ˈdɛ.sɐ/
The verdict
“dessa” is in the everyday core of Portuguese, ranked #375 in Portuguese word frequency and used as a contraction.
- #375
- frequency rank, Portuguese
- 5
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 15
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo feminino essa:
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dessa |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Part of speech | Contraction |
| IPA | /ˈdɛ.sɐ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #375 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 15 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dessa” sits in Portuguese frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Portuguese entry for dessa is 5 letters long, classified as a contraction, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɛ.sɐ/. Corpus data places it at rank #375 in overall Portuguese word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo feminino essa:".
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for dessa, with forms such as "ddessa", "desa", and "desas". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 15 confusable-pair relationships, "deus", "disse", "disso", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct Portuguese form is dessa, spelled D-E-S-S-A.
Definition
- 1contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo feminino essa:
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddessa,desa,desas,dsesa,edssa
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of dessa - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “dessa”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Portuguese spelling is D-E-S-S-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈdɛ.sɐ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “deus” - see the side-by-side comparison. dessa vs deus
- Browse more Portuguese words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Portuguese words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.