destevsdoenteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: deste is a contraction, doente is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#346
“deste” frequency rank
#2,318
“doente” frequency rank
2664
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deste doente
Definition contração da preposição de com o pronome ou determinante demonstrativo este: que tem a saúde alterada

Letter map: deste vs doente

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

5 ch
deste
6 ch
doente

Role in the sentence - deste and doente

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: deste is acontraction and doenteanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2664, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deste is recorded at frequency rank #346, classified as acontraction. doente is at rank #2,318, tagged as anadj.

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 2664, this pair ranks #72,644 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of deste vs doente

Shared letters: det. Private to "deste": s. Private to "doente": no.

"deste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "doente" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deste ← ddeste · deset · desste · destte · detse · dsete · edste
  • doente ← ddoente · deonte · doenet · doennte · doentte · doetne · donete · odente

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "deste" and "doente" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "deste" is a contraction and "doente" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "deste" or "doente" show up more?
"deste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #346 in our Portuguese list, against #2,318 for "doente". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "deste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "doente" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,644 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deste" and "doente" 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 #72,644 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