deepvsdezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#12,646
“deep” frequency rank
#771
“dez” frequency rank
13417
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deep dez
Definition profundo dotado de bons atributos

Where the eye mixes deep and dez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
deep
3 ch
dez

Look-alike desk: deep vs dez

A purely visual mix-up. deep (/diːp/) and dez (/ˈdɛʃ/) 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 13417, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deep is recorded at frequency rank #12,646, classified as anadj, pronounced /diːp/. dez is at rank #771, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈdɛʃ/.

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 13417, this pair ranks #58,933 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of deep vs dez

Shared letters: de. Private to "deep": p. Private to "dez": z.

"deep" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "dez" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deepddeep · deepp · dep · depe · edep

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deep" for "dez" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/diːp/ versus /ˈdɛʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "deep" or "dez" show up more?
"dez" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #771 in our Portuguese list, against #12,646 for "deep". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "deep" and "dez" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "deep" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58,933 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deep" and "dez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deep vs devi". 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 #58,933 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