Which to use
“dela” is a contraction and “devi” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #295
- “dela” frequency rank
- #47,301
- “devi” frequency rank
- 47596
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dela | devi |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | contração da preposição de e do pronome ela | dever, ter obrigação de, ter que |
Where the eye mixes dela and devi
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses dela with devi
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dela is /ˈde.lɐ/ while devi is /ˈde.vi/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47596, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dela is recorded at frequency rank #295, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ˈde.lɐ/. devi is at rank #47,301, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈde.vi/.
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 47596, this pair ranks #17,641 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of dela vs devi
Shared letters: de. Private to "dela": al. Private to "devi": iv.
"dela" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "devi" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dela" for "devi" ever safe?
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "dela" or "devi" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "dela" and "devi" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "dela" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "devi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #17,641 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dela" and "devi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "devi vs device". 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 #17,641 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.