cumbia
[ˈkũmbja]
The verdict
“cumbia” is a moderately-common Spanish word, ranked #12,126 in Spanish word frequency and used as a noun.
- #12,126
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 19
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Baile folclórico y género musical de Colombia y Panamá, de ritmo alegre y compás de dos por cuatro. En su versión tradicional, los participantes llevan una vela en la mano, y las mujeres usan una f...
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cumbia |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ˈkũmbja] |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #12,126 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 19 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cumbia” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for cumbia is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈkũmbja]. Corpus data places it at rank #12,126 in overall Spanish word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Baile folclórico y género musical de Colombia y Panamá, de ritmo alegre y compás de dos por cuatro. En su versión tradicional, los participantes llevan una vela en la mano, y las mujeres usan una f...".
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for cumbia, with forms such as "ccumbia", "cmubia", and "cubmia". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 19 confusable-pair relationships, "curia", "cumbre", "cumpla", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct Spanish form is cumbia, spelled C-U-M-B-I-A.
Definition
- 1Baile folclórico y género musical de Colombia y Panamá, de ritmo alegre y compás de dos por cuatro. En su versión tradicional, los participantes llevan una vela en la mano, y las mujeres usan una falda amplia llamada pollera. Originalmente se danza con los pies muy cerca uno del otro y a pasos pequeños, lo que se atribuye a que quienes inventaron este baile traían encadenados los pies. El ritmo está difundido por toda América Latina, con versiones propias en México, El Salvador, Perú, Chile, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina y Costa Rica.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccumbia,cmubia,cubmia,cumbai,cumbbia,cumiba,cummbia,cumvia,ucmbia
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of cumbia - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Spanish corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "cumbia"?
What does "cumbia" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "cumbia"?
How do you pronounce "cumbia"?
What language does "cumbia" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “cumbia”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is C-U-M-B-I-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈkũmbja] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “curia” - see the side-by-side comparison. cumbia vs curia
- Browse more Spanish words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Spanish words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.