dashvsdeathWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“dash” and “death” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#21,982
“dash” frequency rank
#7,267
“death” frequency rank
29249
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dash death
Definition travessão, hífen morte

Where the eye mixes dash and death

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
dash
5 ch
death

Why the eye confuses dash with death

A purely visual mix-up. dash (/ˈdæʃ/) and death (/dɛθ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29249, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dash is recorded at frequency rank #21,982, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdæʃ/. death is at rank #7,267, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɛθ/.

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 29249, this pair ranks #39,442 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dash vs death

Shared letters: adh. Private to "dash": s. Private to "death": et.

"dash" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "death" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dashadsh · dahs · dashh · dassh · ddash · dsah
  • deathdaeth · ddeath · deaht · deathh · deatth · detah · edath

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dash" and "death" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈdæʃ/ versus /dɛθ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "dash" or "death" show up more?
"death" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,267 in our Portuguese list, against #21,982 for "dash". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dash" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "death" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,442 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dash" and "death" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dash 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 #39,442 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