delosvsdueñosWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: delos is a contraction, dueños is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“delos” is a contraction and “dueños” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,063
“delos” frequency rank
#3,838
“dueños” frequency rank
36901
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature delos dueños
Definition Contracción de la preposición de y el artículo los Forma del plural de dueño.

Where the eye mixes delos and dueños

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
delos
6 ch
dueños

Visual trap between delos and dueños

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: delos is /ˈde.los/ while dueños is [ˈd̪weɲos]. 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 (contraction vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36901, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

delos is recorded at frequency rank #33,063, classified as acontraction, pronounced /ˈde.los/. dueños is at rank #3,838, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈd̪weɲos].

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 36901, this pair ranks #178,181 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of delos vs dueños

Shared letters: deos. Private to "delos": l. Private to "dueños": .

"delos" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "dueños" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • delosddelos · dellos · deloss · delso · deols · dleos · edlos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "delos" for "dueños" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "delos" is a contraction and "dueños" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "delos" or "dueños"?
"dueños" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,838 in our Spanish list, against #33,063 for "delos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "delos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dueños" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,181 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "delos" and "dueños" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deli vs delos". 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 #178,181 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