tío

[ˈt̪io]

/[ˈt̪io]/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“tío” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #2,229) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#2,229
frequency rank, Spanish
3,005
“T” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Hermano de la madre o del padre de una persona.

Corpus desk

Index ES-tio · tío · Spanish

tío · rank #2,229 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #2,229
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,005
  • PHOTO-FINISH toque

Nearest frequency peer: toque (-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.

Vecinos de frecuencia del confusable “tío”

Pares de peso similar en el corpus, aparte de los confusables abajo

corpus weight

What this shows Las barras sitúan “tío” frente a los lemas españoles más cercanos por rango, no un reprint del escritorio de confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

tío vs tú
33% similar
tío vs to
67% similar
tío vs TV
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for tío
PropertyValue
Headwordtío
LanguageSpanish
Part of speechNoun
IPA[ˈt̪io]
Letters3
Frequency rank#2,229
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rango de corpus junto a confusables de “tío”

Esta escala corre desde el núcleo del español cotidiano (izquierda) hasta el rastro de formas rara vez usadas (derecha).tíocae aquí:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

El eje es logarítmico: cada tick marca unas diez veces menos frecuencia. En la misma franja de rareza aparecen “toque” (#2,228), “volumen” (#2,230), “ámbito” (#2,231). Entre 3,005 lemas con “T”, “tío” va en #2,229. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for tío is neighbouring look-alikes ("tú", "to", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced [ˈt̪io]. Frequency #2,229 among 3,005 “T” headwords. 4 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

tío has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "tú", "to", "TV", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Spanish form is tío, spelled T-Í-O.

Definition

  1. 1
    Hermano de la madre o del padre de una persona.
  2. 2
    Primo de la madre o del padre de una persona.
  3. 3
    Se utiliza para referirse a una persona cualquiera, o como forma de llamar a un amigo.
  4. 4
    Hermano de la abuela o del abuelo de una persona.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how tío appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Me gritó ese tío. Tío, vente a mi casa.

Synonyms

tío segundocolegacuatechabónguachogüeyindividuosujetotipotío abuelo

This word in other languages

uncle(English)oncle(Français)Onkel(Deutsch)

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 "tío"?
"tío" is spelled T-Í-O. The IPA pronunciation is [ˈt̪io].
What does "tío" mean?
As a noun, "tío" means: Hermano de la madre o del padre de una persona.
What words are commonly confused with "tío"?
"tío" is commonly confused with "tú", "to", "TV". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "tío"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tío" is [ˈt̪io]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "tío" come from?
"tío" is a Spanish word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar Spanish words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tío", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Spanish headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

art#2,234Ana#2,195sal#2,318ama#2,328

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list