za
[ˈsa]
The verdict
“za” is a moderately-common Spanish word, ranked #23,278 in Spanish word frequency and used as an interjection.
- #23,278
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 2
- letters
- 16
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Voz que se usa para espantar a algunos animales como el perro, el gato, etc.
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 | za |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | [ˈsa] |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #23,278 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 16 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “za” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for za is 2 letters long, classified as an interjection, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈsa]. Corpus data places it at rank #23,278 in overall Spanish word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Voz que se usa para espantar a algunos animales como el perro, el gato, etc.".
za doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 16 confusable-pair relationships, "ze", "zi", "zoo", 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 za, spelled Z-A.
Definition
- 1Voz que se usa para espantar a algunos animales como el perro, el gato, etc.
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 “za”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is Z-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈsa] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ze” - see the side-by-side comparison. za vs ze
- 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.