deve vs done, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“deve” and “done” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#182
“deve” frequency rank: #23,299
“done” frequency rank: 23481
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	deve	done
Definition	terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo dever	particípio do verbo do

Letter map: deve vs done

Shared letters muted; letters that set deve and done apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. deve and done follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch

deve

4 ch

done

Corpus notes: deve and done

deve and done are indexed as a confusable Portuguese pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23481, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deve is recorded at frequency rank #182, classified as averb. done is at rank #23,299, tagged as averb, pronounced /dʌn/; /dɐn/; /dʊn/.

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 23481, this pair ranks #46,342 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deve vs done

Shared letters: de. Private to "deve": v. Private to "done": no.

"deve" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "done" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

deve ← ddeve · deev · devve · dvee · edve
done ← ddone · dnoe · doen · donne

Frequently Asked Questions

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

No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

Frequency check: "deve" vs "done" - which ranks higher?

"deve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #182 in our Portuguese list, against #23,299 for "done". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "deve" vs "done" 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 "done" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #46,342 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"deve" and "done" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dodo vs done". 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 #46,342 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.