deirvsdejóConfusable pair

Quick tell: deir is a adjective, dejó is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“deir” is an adjective and “dejó” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,473
“deir” frequency rank
#985
“dejó” frequency rank
47458
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deir dejó
Definition Mutación suave del adjetivo numeral cardinal femenino teir ('tres') Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de dejar.

Where the eye mixes deir and dejó

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

4 ch
deir
4 ch
dejó

Why the eye confuses deir with dejó

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: deir is [ˈdɛjr] while dejó is [d̪eˈxo]. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47458, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deir is recorded at frequency rank #46,473, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈdɛjr]. dejó is at rank #985, tagged as averb, pronounced [d̪eˈxo].

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 47458, this pair ranks #119,948 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deir vs dejó

Shared letters: de. Private to "deir": ir. Private to "dejó": .

"deir" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "dejó" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deirddeir · deirr · deri · edir

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deir" for "dejó" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "deir" is an adjective and "dejó" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "deir" or "dejó"?
"dejó" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #985 in our Spanish list, against #46,473 for "deir". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "deir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dejó" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #119,948 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deir" and "dejó" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deir vs Deva". 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 #119,948 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