Which to use
“dire” is a verb and “duro” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,835
- “dire” frequency rank
- #3,070
- “duro” frequency rank
- 30905
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dire | duro |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | dizer, falar | difícil de quebrar ou de desfazer |
Letter map: dire vs duro
Shared letters muted; letters that set dire and duro apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for dire / duro
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dire is averb and duroanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30905, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dire is recorded at frequency rank #27,835, classified as averb, pronounced /diʁ/. duro is at rank #3,070, tagged as anadj.
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 30905, this pair ranks #37,326 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dire vs duro
Shared letters: dr. Private to "dire": ei. Private to "duro": ou.
"dire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "duro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dire" and "duro" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "dire" or "duro"?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "dire" and "duro".
- Full dictionary entry for "dire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "duro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #37,326 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dire" and "duro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dink vs dire". 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 #37,326 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.