dentevsdesseWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#5,404
“dente” frequency rank
#391
“desse” frequency rank
5795
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dente desse
Definition estrutura calcárea, dura, geralmente esmaltada, presente na boca dos animais vertebrados, usada para cortar, arrancar, triturar e moer alimentos, assim como para defesa e ataque contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo esse:

Letter map: dente vs desse

Shared letters muted; letters that set dente and desse apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. dente and desse follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
dente
5 ch
desse

Grammar separator: dente vs desse

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dente is anoun and desseacontraction. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5795, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dente is recorded at frequency rank #5,404, classified as anoun. desse is at rank #391, tagged as acontraction, pronounced /ˈde.sɨ/.

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 5795, this pair ranks #68,747 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dente vs desse

Shared letters: de. Private to "dente": nt. Private to "desse": s.

"dente" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "desse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dente ← ddente · denet · dennte · dentte · detne · dnete · ednte
  • desse ← ddesse · dese · deses · dsese · edsse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dente" and "desse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dente" is a noun and "desse" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dente" or "desse"?
"desse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #391 in our Portuguese list, against #5,404 for "dente". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "dente" vs "desse" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dente" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "desse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,747 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dente" and "desse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "delete vs dente". 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 #68,747 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