cuevscuevaTell them apart

Which to use

“cue” and “cueva” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,969
“cue” frequency rank
#5,389
“cueva” frequency rank
41358
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cue cueva
Definition Señal que se emplea para marcar el inicio de una acción. Cavidad natural del terreno, apta para servir de cobijo a animales y seres humanos, y que puede ser acondicionada para vivienda.

Where the eye mixes cue and cueva

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
cue
5 ch
cueva

Look-alike desk: cue vs cueva

A purely visual mix-up. cue (/kjuː/) and cueva ([ˈkweβ̞a]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “cue” sits inside “cueva”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41358, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cue is recorded at frequency rank #35,969, classified as anoun, pronounced /kjuː/. cueva is at rank #5,389, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkweβ̞a].

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 41358, this pair ranks #154,091 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cue vs cueva

Shared letters: ceu. Private to "cue": -. Private to "cueva": av.

"cue" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "cueva" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cuevaccueva · ceuva · cueav · cueba · cuevva · cuvea · uceva

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cue" for "cueva" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kjuː/ versus [ˈkweβ̞a]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cue" or "cueva"?
"cueva" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,389 in our Spanish list, against #35,969 for "cue". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "cue" and "cueva" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cueva" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #154,091 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cue" and "cueva" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cuc vs cue". 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 #154,091 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