do vs due, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#6
“do” frequency rank: #24,954
“due” frequency rank: 24960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	do	due
Definition	contração da preposição de com o artigo definido o	devido

Where the eye mixes do and due

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

due

Why the eye confuses do with due

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: do is /du/ (/do/, se enfático) while due is /dju/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (contraction vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

do is recorded at frequency rank #6, classified as acontraction, pronounced /du/ (/do/, se enfático). 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 24960, this pair ranks #44,479 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of do vs due

Shared letters: d. Private to "do": o. Private to "due": eu.

"do" · 2 letters · shape CV · "due" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

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

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

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

"do" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6 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.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "do" 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 #44,479 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"do" and "due" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs due". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #44,479 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.