retenían
[ret̪eˈniãn]
The verdict
“retenían” is uncommon Spanish (frequency #89,296 among 4,151 “R” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,296
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 4,151
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de retener.
Corpus desk
Index ES-retenian · retenían · Spanish
retenían · rank #89,296 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #89,296
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,151
- PHOTO-FINISH retorcía
Nearest frequency peer: retorcía (+2 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.
Rangos de cola larga cerca de “retenían”
Banda escasa: las barras invierten el rango para que lo raro se lea más corto
- reprochaba
reprochaba
10,709 corpus weight
- rescatadores
rescatadores
10,708 corpus weight
- retenían
retenían
10,705 corpus weight
- retorcía
retorcía
10,703 corpus weight
- retrasaría
retrasaría
10,702 corpus weight
- retumban
retumban
10,701 corpus weight
What this shows Vista de cola larga: dónde “retenían” se sitúa frente a rangos españoles igualmente raros.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | retenían |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | [ret̪eˈniãn] |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #89,296 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Cola larga: rango de “retenían” en español
Rare enough to double-check
retenían is uncommon Spanish at frequency #89,296 among 4,151 “R” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed [ret̪eˈniãn]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de retener.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for retenían, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct Spanish form is retenían, spelled R-E-T-E-N-Í-A-N.
Definition
- 1Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de retener.
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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Similar Spanish words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "retenían", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked Spanish headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).