delavsduraWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#295
“dela” frequency rank
#2,319
“dura” frequency rank
2614
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dela dura
Definition contração da preposição de e do pronome ela o mesmo que duração ('qualidade do que dura')

Letter map: dela vs dura

Shared letters muted; letters that set dela and dura apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. dela and dura follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
dela
4 ch
dura

Part-of-speech tell for dela / dura

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dela is acontraction and duraanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2614, 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/. dura is at rank #2,319, tagged as anoun.

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 2614, this pair ranks #72,718 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dela vs dura

Shared letters: ad. Private to "dela": el. Private to "dura": ru.

"dela" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "dura" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dela ← ddela · deal · della · dlea · edla
  • dura ← ddura · drua · duar · durra · udra

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dela" and "dura" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dela" is a contraction and "dura" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dela" or "dura"?
"dela" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #295 in our Portuguese list, against #2,319 for "dura". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "dela" and "dura". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dela" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dura" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,718 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dela" and "dura" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "doula vs dura". 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 #72,718 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