dolovsdolosoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: dolo is a noun, doloso is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dolo” is a noun and “doloso” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,862
“dolo” frequency rank
#32,953
“doloso” frequency rank
76815
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dolo doloso
Definition vontade livre e consciente de realizar uma conduta tipificada na legislação penal em que há dolo ou que foi causado por dolo

Letter map: dolo vs doloso

Shared letters muted; letters that set dolo and doloso apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. dolo runs 4 letters (CVCV) against doloso's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
dolo
6 ch
doloso

Role in the sentence - dolo and doloso

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dolo is anoun and dolosoanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “dolo” sits inside “doloso”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76815, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dolo is recorded at frequency rank #43,862, classified as anoun. doloso is at rank #32,953, 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 76815, this pair ranks #2,015 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dolo vs doloso

Shared letters: dlo. Private to "dolo": -. Private to "doloso": s.

"dolo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "doloso" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dolo ← ddolo · dloo · dollo · dool · odlo
  • doloso ← ddoloso · dlooso · dolloso · doloos · dolosso · dolsoo · doolso · odloso

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dolo" and "doloso" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dolo" is a noun and "doloso" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "dolo" or "doloso" show up more?
"doloso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,953 in our Portuguese list, against #43,862 for "dolo". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "dolo" and "doloso". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dolo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "doloso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,015 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dolo" and "doloso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dolo vs drogo". 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 #2,015 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