Which to use
“dear” is an adjective and “del” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #20,263
- “dear” frequency rank
- #1,706
- “del” frequency rank
- 21969
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dear | del |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | querido; amado | do, da, contração da preposição de com o artigo definido singular el: |
Letter map: dear vs del
Shared letters muted; letters that set dear and del apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for dear / del
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dear is anadjective and delacontraction. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21969, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dear is recorded at frequency rank #20,263, classified as anadj, pronounced /dɪɹ/. del is at rank #1,706, tagged as acontraction.
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 21969, this pair ranks #48,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dear vs del
Shared letters: de. Private to "dear": ar. Private to "del": l.
"dear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "del" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dear ← daer · ddear · dearr · dera · edar
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dear" and "del" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "dear" vs "del" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've compared "dear" and "del". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "dear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "del" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #48,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dear" and "del" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs dear". 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 #48,178 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.