devevsdieTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#182
“deve” frequency rank
#12,038
“die” frequency rank
12220
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deve die
Definition terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo dever o, a, os, as, artigo definido:

Letter map: deve vs die

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

4 ch
deve
3 ch
die

Role in the sentence - deve and die

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: deve is averb and dieanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12220, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deve is recorded at frequency rank #182, classified as averb. die is at rank #12,038, tagged as anarticle, pronounced /di/.

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 12220, this pair ranks #60,452 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of deve vs die

Shared letters: de. Private to "deve": v. Private to "die": i.

"deve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "die" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deveddeve · deev · devve · dvee · edve

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "deve" and "die" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "deve" is a verb and "die" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "deve" or "die" show up more?
"deve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #182 in our Portuguese list, against #12,038 for "die". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "deve" vs "die" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "deve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "die" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,452 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deve" and "die" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs die". 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 #60,452 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