duravsduroWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#2,319
“dura” frequency rank
#3,070
“duro” frequency rank
5389
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dura duro
Definition o mesmo que duração ('qualidade do que dura') difícil de quebrar ou de desfazer

Letter map: dura vs duro

Shared letters muted; letters that set dura and duro apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. dura and duro follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
dura
4 ch
duro

Part-of-speech tell for dura / duro

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dura is anoun and duroanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “dura” becomes o in “duro”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5389, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dura is recorded at frequency rank #2,319, classified as anoun. 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 5389, this pair ranks #69,232 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dura vs duro

Shared letters: dru. Private to "dura": a. Private to "duro": o.

"dura" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "duro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dura ← ddura · drua · duar · durra · udra
  • duro ← dduro · druo · duor · durro · udro

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dura" for "duro" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dura" is a noun and "duro" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dura" or "duro"?
"dura" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,319 in our Portuguese list, against #3,070 for "duro". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "dura" and "duro".

  • Full dictionary entry for "dura" 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 #69,232 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dura" and "duro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "damo vs duro". 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 #69,232 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