dalivsdamTell them apart

Quick tell: dali is a contraction, dam is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dali” is a contraction and “dam” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,049
“dali” frequency rank
#34,654
“dam” frequency rank
40703
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dali dam
Definition contração da preposição de com o advérbio de lugar ali: senhora

Letter map: dali vs dam

Shared letters muted; letters that set dali and dam apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
dali
3 ch
dam

Role in the sentence - dali and dam

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dali is acontraction and damanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40703, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dali is recorded at frequency rank #6,049, classified as acontraction. dam is at rank #34,654, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɑːm/ ouvir^(fonte ?).

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 40703, this pair ranks #25,363 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dali vs dam

Shared letters: ad. Private to "dali": il. Private to "dam": m.

"dali" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "dam" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • daliadli · dail · dalli · ddali · dlai

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dali" and "dam" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dali" is a contraction and "dam" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "dali" or "dam" show up more?
"dali" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,049 in our Portuguese list, against #34,654 for "dam". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "dali" vs "dam" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dali" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dam" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,363 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dali" and "dam" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dam vs dat". 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 #25,363 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