lio
[ˈljo]
The verdict
“lio” is a moderately-common Spanish word, ranked #18,008 in Spanish word frequency and used as a verb.
- #18,008
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de liar o de liarse.
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 | lio |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | [ˈljo] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #18,008 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lio” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for lio is 3 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈljo]. Corpus data places it at rank #18,008 in overall Spanish word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de liar o de liarse.".
Zero misspellings are on record for lio in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "lo", "Lu", "ll", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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 lio, spelled L-I-O.
Definition
- 1Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de liar o de liarse.
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
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Using “lio”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is L-I-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈljo] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “lo” - see the side-by-side comparison. lio vs lo
- 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.