dele vs dolo, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#261
“dele” frequency rank: #43,862
“dolo” frequency rank: 44123
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dele	dolo
Definition	contração da preposição de com o pronome pessoal ele	vontade livre e consciente de realizar uma conduta tipificada na legislação penal

Letter map: dele vs dolo

Shared letters muted; letters that set dele and dolo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

dele

4 ch

dolo

Grammar separator: dele vs dolo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dele is acontraction and doloanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44123, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dele is recorded at frequency rank #261, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ˈde.lɨ/. dolo is at rank #43,862, 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 44123, this pair ranks #21,415 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dele vs dolo

Shared letters: dl. Private to "dele": e. Private to "dolo": o.

"dele" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "dolo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

dele ← ddele · deel · delle · dlee · edle
dolo ← ddolo · dloo · dollo · dool · odlo

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dele" and "dolo" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dele" is a contraction and "dolo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary Portuguese text, does "dele" or "dolo" show up more?

"dele" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #261 in our Portuguese list, against #43,862 for "dolo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "dele" vs "dolo" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "dele" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "dolo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #21,415 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dele" and "dolo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dolo vs drogo". 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 #21,415 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.