dañadovsdragadoTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#12,130
“dañado” frequency rank
#45,887
“dragado” frequency rank
58017
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dañado dragado
Definition Participio de dañar. Extracción de arena, lodo, piedras y otros materiales del lecho de un río, canal, puerto o zona navegable

Where the eye mixes dañado and dragado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. dañado runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against dragado's 7 (CCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
dañado
7 ch
dragado

Why the eye confuses dañado with dragado

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dañado is [d̪aˈɲað̞o] while dragado is [d̪ɾaˈɣ̞að̞o]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58017, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dañado is recorded at frequency rank #12,130, classified as averb, pronounced [d̪aˈɲað̞o]. dragado is at rank #45,887, tagged as anoun, pronounced [d̪ɾaˈɣ̞að̞o].

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 58017, this pair ranks #68,105 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dañado vs dragado

Shared letters: ado. Private to "dañado": ñ. Private to "dragado": gr.

"dañado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "dragado" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dragado ← dargado · ddragado · draagdo · dragaddo · dragaod · dragdao · draggado · drgaado

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dañado" for "dragado" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dañado" is a verb and "dragado" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "dañado" or "dragado" show up more?
"dañado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,130 in our Spanish list, against #45,887 for "dragado". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dañado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dragado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,105 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dañado" and "dragado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dragado vs drogados". 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 #68,105 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