delvsdueloWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#1,706
“del” frequency rank
#7,522
“duelo” frequency rank
9228
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature del duelo
Definition do, da, contração da preposição de com o artigo definido singular el: combate entre duas pessoas, normalmente usando espadas ou pistolas, e na maioria das vezes por questões de honra

Letter map: del vs duelo

Shared letters muted; letters that set del and duelo apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
del
5 ch
duelo

Part-of-speech tell for del / duelo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: del is acontraction and dueloanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9228, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

del is recorded at frequency rank #1,706, classified as acontraction. duelo is at rank #7,522, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdwɛ.lu/.

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 9228, this pair ranks #64,279 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of del vs duelo

Shared letters: del. Private to "del": -. Private to "duelo": ou.

"del" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "duelo" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • duelodduelo · deulo · duello · dueol · duleo · udelo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "del" and "duelo" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "del" is a contraction and "duelo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "del" or "duelo" show up more?
"del" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,706 in our Portuguese list, against #7,522 for "duelo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "del" and "duelo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "del" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duelo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,279 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "del" and "duelo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dreno vs duelo". 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 #64,279 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