cuevsculoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#35,969
“cue” frequency rank
#1,474
“culo” frequency rank
37443
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cue culo
Definition Señal que se emplea para marcar el inicio de una acción. Conjunto de la musculatura de la parte posterior de la cadera.

Where the eye mixes cue and culo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
cue
4 ch
culo

Why the eye confuses cue with culo

A purely visual mix-up. cue (/kjuː/) and culo ([ˈkulo]) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37443, 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/. culo is at rank #1,474, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkulo].

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 37443, this pair ranks #175,277 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cue vs culo

Shared letters: cu. Private to "cue": e. Private to "culo": lo.

"cue" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "culo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • culocculo · cluo · cullo · cuol · uclo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cue" for "culo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/kjuː/ versus [ˈkulo]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "cue" or "culo"?
"culo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,474 in our Spanish list, against #35,969 for "cue". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "cue" and "culo" 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 "culo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #175,277 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cue" and "culo" 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 #175,277 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