delete vs deste, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“delete” is a verb and “deste” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,777
“delete” frequency rank: #346
“deste” frequency rank: 34123
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	delete	deste
Definition	excluir	contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo este:

Letter map: delete vs deste

Shared letters muted; letters that set delete and deste apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch

delete

5 ch

deste

Grammar separator: delete vs deste

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: delete is averb and desteacontraction. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34123, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

delete is recorded at frequency rank #33,777, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪ.ˈliːt/. deste is at rank #346, tagged as acontraction.

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 34123, this pair ranks #33,229 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of delete vs deste

Shared letters: det. Private to "delete": l. Private to "deste": s.

"delete" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "deste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

delete ← ddelete · deelte · deleet · delette · dellete · deltee · dleete · edlete
deste ← ddeste · deset · desste · destte · detse · dsete · edste

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "delete" for "deste" ever safe?

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

Frequency check: "delete" vs "deste" - which ranks higher?

"deste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #346 in our Portuguese list, against #33,777 for "delete". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "delete" and "deste".

Full dictionary entry for "delete" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "deste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #33,229 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"delete" and "deste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "delete vs demente". 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 #33,229 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.