un
[ũn]
The verdict
“un” is in the everyday core of Spanish, ranked #10 in Spanish word frequency and used as an article.
- #10
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 2
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Artículo indeterminado masculino singular.
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 | un |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Article |
| IPA | [ũn] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “un” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for un is 2 letters long, classified as an article, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ũn]. Corpus data places it at rank #10 in overall Spanish word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for un, a sign its spelling follows regular Spanish conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "us", "up", "ur", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct Spanish form is un, spelled U-N.
Definition
- 1Artículo indeterminado masculino singular.
- 2Algún (apócope de alguno, indicando indeterminación).
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “un”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is U-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ũn] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “us” - see the side-by-side comparison. un vs us
- 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.