densovsdissoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: denso is a adjective, disso is a contraction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“denso” is an adjective and “disso” is a contraction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,113
“denso” frequency rank
#256
“disso” frequency rank
19369
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature denso disso
Definition que tem muita massa em relação ao volume contração da preposição de com o pronome demonstrativo isso:

Where the eye mixes denso and disso

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. denso and disso follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
denso
5 ch
disso

Why the eye confuses denso with disso

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: denso is /ˈdẽ.su/ while disso is /ˈdi.su/. 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 (adjective vs contraction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19369, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

denso is recorded at frequency rank #19,113, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈdẽ.su/. disso is at rank #256, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /ˈdi.su/.

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 19369, this pair ranks #51,369 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of denso vs disso

Shared letters: dos. Private to "denso": en. Private to "disso": i.

"denso" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "disso" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • denso ← ddenso · dennso · denos · densso · desno · dneso · ednso
  • disso ← ddisso · diso · disos · dsiso · idsso

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "denso" and "disso" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "denso" is an adjective and "disso" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "denso" vs "disso" - which ranks higher?
"disso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #256 in our Portuguese list, against #19,113 for "denso". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "denso" and "disso" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "denso" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "disso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #51,369 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "denso" and "disso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "denso vs dreno". 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 #51,369 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