desdevsdesteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#155
“desde” frequency rank
#346
“deste” frequency rank
501
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature desde deste
Definition a começar de; a partir de contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo este:

Letter map: desde vs deste

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

5 ch
desde
5 ch
deste

Role in the sentence - desde and deste

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: desde is apreposition and desteacontraction. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “desde” becomes t in “deste”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 501, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

desde is recorded at frequency rank #155, classified as aprep, pronounced /ˈdeʒ.dɨ/. 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 501, this pair ranks #75,161 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of desde vs deste

Shared letters: des. Private to "desde": -. Private to "deste": t.

"desde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "deste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • desdeddesde · dedse · desdde · desed · dessde · dsede · edsde
  • desteddeste · deset · desste · destte · detse · dsete · edste

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "desde" for "deste" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "desde" is a preposition and "deste" a contraction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "desde" vs "deste" - which ranks higher?
"desde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #155 in our Portuguese list, against #346 for "deste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "desde" 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 #75,161 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "desde" and "deste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "decade vs desde". 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 #75,161 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