destevsdeveWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#346
“deste” frequency rank
#182
“deve” frequency rank
528
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deste deve
Definition contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo este: terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo dever

Letter map: deste vs deve

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

5 ch
deste
4 ch
deve

Role in the sentence - deste and deve

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: deste is acontraction and deveaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 528, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deste is recorded at frequency rank #346, classified as acontraction. 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 528, this pair ranks #75,140 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of deste vs deve

Shared letters: de. Private to "deste": st. Private to "deve": v.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • desteddeste · deset · desste · destte · detse · dsete · edste
  • deveddeve · deev · devve · dvee · edve

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "deste" and "deve" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "deste" is a contraction and "deve" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "deste" or "deve" show up more?
"deve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #182 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "deste" 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 #75,140 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deste" 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 #75,140 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