descervsdesteTell them apart

Quick tell: descer is a verb, deste is a contraction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#4,630
“descer” frequency rank
#346
“deste” frequency rank
4976
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature descer deste
Definition ir ou passar de um lugar mais alto para um lugar mais baixo contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo este:

Letter map: descer vs deste

Shared letters muted; letters that set descer and deste apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. descer runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against deste's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
descer
5 ch
deste

Part-of-speech tell for descer / deste

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: descer is averb and desteacontraction. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4976, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

descer is recorded at frequency rank #4,630, classified as averb, pronounced /dɨʃ.ˈseɾ/. 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 4976, this pair ranks #69,753 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of descer vs deste

Shared letters: des. Private to "descer": cr. Private to "deste": t.

"descer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "deste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • descer ← ddescer · decser · desccer · descerr · descre · desecr · desscer · dsecer
  • deste ← ddeste · deset · desste · destte · detse · dsete · edste

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "descer" and "deste" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "descer" is a verb and "deste" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "descer" or "deste" show up more?
"deste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #346 in our Portuguese list, against #4,630 for "descer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "descer" vs "deste" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "descer" 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 #69,753 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "descer" and "deste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deste vs destro". 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 #69,753 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