demais vs desmaio, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“demais” is an adverb and “desmaio” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#424
“demais” frequency rank: #32,146
“desmaio” frequency rank: 32570
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	demais	desmaio
Definition	em demasia; excessivamente; além disso	perda dos sentidos

Letter map: demais vs desmaio

Shared letters muted; letters that set demais and desmaio apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. demais runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against desmaio's 7 (CVCCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch

demais

7 ch

desmaio

Part-of-speech tell for demais / desmaio

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: demais is anadverb and desmaioanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32570, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

demais is recorded at frequency rank #424, classified as anadv. desmaio is at rank #32,146, 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 32570, this pair ranks #35,198 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of demais vs desmaio

Shared letters: adeims. Private to "demais": -. Private to "desmaio": o.

"demais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "desmaio" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

demais ← ddemais · deamis · demaiss · demasi · demias · demmais · dmeais · edmais
desmaio ← ddesmaio · demsaio · desamio · desmaoi · desmiao · desmmaio · dessmaio · dsemaio

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "demais" and "desmaio" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "demais" is an adverb and "desmaio" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "demais" vs "desmaio" - which ranks higher?

"demais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #424 in our Portuguese list, against #32,146 for "desmaio". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "demais" and "desmaio". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "demais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "desmaio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #35,198 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"demais" and "desmaio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "desmaiado vs desmaio". 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 #35,198 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.