cegadovscriadoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: cegado is a verb, criado is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cegado” is a verb and “criado” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,004
“cegado” frequency rank
#9,433
“criado” frequency rank
47437
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cegado criado
Definition Participio de cegar. Persona que sirve a otra, o a una familia, como medio de subsistencia. Por lo general se trata de gente humilde, sin estudios, que realiza labores domésticas.

Where the eye mixes cegado and criado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. cegado (CVCVCV) and criado (CCVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
cegado
6 ch
criado

Why the eye confuses cegado with criado

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cegado is [seˈɣ̞að̞o] while criado is [ˈkɾjað̞o]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cegado is recorded at frequency rank #38,004, classified as averb, pronounced [seˈɣ̞að̞o]. criado is at rank #9,433, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkɾjað̞o].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 47437, this pair ranks #120,065 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cegado vs criado

Shared letters: acdo. Private to "cegado": eg. Private to "criado": ir.

"cegado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "criado" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cegado ← ccegado · ceagdo · cegaddo · cegaod · cegdao · ceggado · cgeado · ecgado
  • criado ← ccriado · cirado · craido · criaddo · criaod · cridao · crriado · rciado

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cegado" and "criado" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cegado" is a verb and "criado" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "cegado" or "criado" show up more?
"criado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,433 in our Spanish list, against #38,004 for "cegado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cegado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "criado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,065 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cegado" and "criado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cegado vs cenado". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #120,065 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list