él
[ˈel]
The verdict
“él” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #142) as a pronoun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #142
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 31
- “É” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - Nominativo y preposicional del pronombre personal de la tercera persona del singular en el género masculino.
Corpus desk
Index ES-el · él · Spanish
él · rank #142 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #142
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 31
- PHOTO-FINISH sido
Nearest frequency peer: sido (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “él”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- he
he
99,862 corpus weight
- nuevo
nuevo
99,861 corpus weight
- sido
sido
99,860 corpus weight
- él
él
99,859 corpus weight
- aquí
aquí
99,858 corpus weight
- ella
ella
99,857 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “él” sits against the nearest ranked Spanish headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | él |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Pronoun |
| IPA | [ˈel] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #142 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “él” sits in Spanish frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for él is neighbouring look-alikes ("en", "ex", …), not just typos; it is apronoun pronounced [ˈel]. Frequency #142 among 31 “É” headwords. Gloss: "Nominativo y preposicional del pronombre personal de la tercera persona del singular en el género masculino.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for él in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "en", "ex", "et", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct Spanish form is él, spelled É-L.
Definition
- 1Nominativo y preposicional del pronombre personal de la tercera persona del singular en el género masculino.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how él appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Él tiene mucho cariño para ella.
esto es para él.
This word in other languages
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "él"?
What does "él" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "él"?
How do you pronounce "él"?
What language does "él" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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.