Spanish Words Starting with D

There are 11,612 Spanish words beginning with D, and nearly seven in ten of them put an E straight after it.

One Branch Dominates the D Page

E takes about sixty nine percent of the second position, I twenty, and everything else shares the remaining eleven. Very few letters concentrate this heavily.

DE and DES Are Prefixes, Not a Family

The reason for that concentration is that DE and DES attach to a huge range of roots. DESHACER, DESCUBRIR and DEPENDER share only the opening, not a meaning.

DES usually reverses whatever follows it, much as UN does in English, which is why it multiplies so freely across the verb list.

Everyday D Words Worth Knowing

DINERO, DENTRO, DULCE, DORMIR and DIENTE are among the most useful entries, and they sit across both of the large branches.

• Dinero
• Dentro
• Dulce
• Dormir
• Diente

Because so much of the page is prefixed forms, knowing that D is the first letter narrows the meaning far less than it narrows the spelling.

The DI branch at twenty percent holds more independent vocabulary and is the better place to start building words you will actually use.

DINERO, DIENTE and DIBUJO all sit there, and none of them is built from a prefix.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the DES prefix do

It reverses or negates the root it attaches to. HACER means to do and DESHACER means to undo, in the same way UN works in English.

Why is the D sound sometimes soft

Between vowels it softens to something close to the TH in this, so NADA sounds softer than the D at the start of DINERO.

Which D words come up most often

DE itself is one of the most frequent words in Spanish, though at two letters it falls outside this list. DONDE and DENTRO are the common ones here.