desde vs deve, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#155
“desde” frequency rank: #182
“deve” frequency rank: 337
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	desde	deve
Definition	a começar de; a partir de	terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo dever

Letter map: desde vs deve

Shared letters muted; letters that set desde and deve apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

desde

4 ch

deve

Role in the sentence - desde and deve

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: desde is apreposition and deveaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 337, 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/. deve is at rank #182, tagged as averb.

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 337, this pair ranks #75,298 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of desde vs deve

Shared letters: de. Private to "desde": s. Private to "deve": v.

"desde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "deve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

desde ← ddesde · dedse · desdde · desed · dessde · dsede · edsde
deve ← ddeve · deev · devve · dvee · edve

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "desde" for "deve" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "desde" is a preposition and "deve" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "desde" or "deve"?

"desde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #155 in our Portuguese list, against #182 for "deve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "desde" and "deve". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "desde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "deve" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #75,298 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"desde" and "deve" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deve vs devi". 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 #75,298 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.