deve vs due, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#182
“deve” frequency rank: #24,954
“due” frequency rank: 25136
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	deve	due
Definition	terceira pessoa do singular do presente do indicativo do verbo dever	devido

Letter map: deve vs due

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

4 ch

deve

3 ch

due

Grammar separator: deve vs due

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: deve is averb and dueanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25136, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deve is recorded at frequency rank #182, classified as averb. due is at rank #24,954, tagged as anadj, pronounced /dju/.

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 25136, this pair ranks #44,248 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deve vs due

Shared letters: de. Private to "deve": v. Private to "due": u.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

deve ← ddeve · deev · devve · dvee · edve

Frequently Asked Questions

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

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "deve" is a verb and "due" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "deve" or "due"?

"deve" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #182 in our Portuguese list, against #24,954 for "due". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

Full dictionary entry for "deve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "due" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #44,248 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"deve" and "due" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs due". 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 #44,248 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.