devevsdezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: deve is a verb, dez is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#182
“deve” frequency rank
#771
“dez” frequency rank
953
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deve dez
Definition terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo dever dotado de bons atributos

Letter map: deve vs dez

Shared letters muted; letters that set deve and dez apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
deve
3 ch
dez

Part-of-speech tell for deve / dez

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: deve is averb and dezanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 953, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deve is recorded at frequency rank #182, classified as averb. dez is at rank #771, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈdɛʃ/.

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 953, this pair ranks #74,678 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of deve vs dez

Shared letters: de. Private to "deve": v. Private to "dez": z.

"deve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "dez" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deveddeve · deev · devve · dvee · edve

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deve" for "dez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "deve" is a verb and "dez" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "deve" or "dez"?
"deve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #182 in our Portuguese list, against #771 for "dez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "deve" and "dez".

  • Full dictionary entry for "deve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,678 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deve" and "dez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs dez". 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 #74,678 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