disease vs disse, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“disease” is a noun and “disse” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,240
“disease” frequency rank: #176
“disse” frequency rank: 34416
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	disease	disse
Definition	doença, moléstia	primeira pessoa do singular do pretérito perfeito do indicativo do verbo dizer

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set disease and disse apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch

disease

5 ch

disse

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: disease is /dɪˈziz/, SAMPA: /dI"ziz/ while disse is [ˈʤi.se]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34416, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

disease is recorded at frequency rank #34,240, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɪˈziz/, SAMPA: /dI"ziz/. disse is at rank #176, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈʤi.se].

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 34416, this pair ranks #32,850 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of disease vs disse

Shared letters: deis. Private to "disease": a. Private to "disse": -.

"disease" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV · "disse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

disease ← ddisease · diesase · disaese · diseaes · diseasse · disesae · dissease · dsiease
disse ← ddisse · dise · dises · dsise · idsse

Frequency comparison

disease#34,240

disse#176

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "disease" and "disse" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "disease" is a noun and "disse" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "disease" or "disse"?

"disse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #176 in our Portuguese list, against #34,240 for "disease". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering disease vs disse

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “disease”; for a verb, it's “disse”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “disease” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable