dialvsduasWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: dial is a adjective, duas is a num, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dial” is an adjective and “duas” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,858
“dial” frequency rank
#188
“duas” frequency rank
44046
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dial duas
Definition diário feminino de dois/dous; representado pelo símbolo 2 (algarismos indo-arábicos) ou II (algarismos romanos)

Where the eye mixes dial and duas

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
dial
4 ch
duas

Visual trap between dial and duas

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dial is /dʒɪˈaw/ while duas is /ˈdu.ɐʃ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs num), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44046, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dial is recorded at frequency rank #43,858, classified as anadj, pronounced /dʒɪˈaw/. duas is at rank #188, tagged as anum, pronounced /ˈdu.ɐʃ/.

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 44046, this pair ranks #21,499 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dial vs duas

Shared letters: ad. Private to "dial": il. Private to "duas": su.

"dial" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "duas" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dialddial · diall · dila · idal
  • duasdaus · dduas · duass · dusa · udas

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dial" for "duas" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dial" is an adjective and "duas" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "dial" or "duas" show up more?
"duas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #188 in our Portuguese list, against #43,858 for "dial". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "dial" and "duas" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dial" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,499 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dial" and "duas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs dial". 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 #21,499 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