desagradavsdesignadaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: desagrada is a verb, designada is a participle, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“desagrada” is a verb and “designada” is a participle - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,633
“desagrada” frequency rank
#18,792
“designada” frequency rank
57425
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature desagrada designada
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de desagradar. Forma del femenino de designado, participio de designar.

Where the eye mixes desagrada and designada

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. desagrada and designada follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
desagrada
9 ch
designada

Why the eye confuses desagrada with designada

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: desagrada is [d̪esaˈɣ̞ɾað̞a] while designada is [d̪esiɣ̞ˈnað̞a]. 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 (verb vs participle), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57425, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

desagrada is recorded at frequency rank #38,633, classified as averb, pronounced [d̪esaˈɣ̞ɾað̞a]. designada is at rank #18,792, tagged as aparticiple, pronounced [d̪esiɣ̞ˈnað̞a].

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 57425, this pair ranks #70,560 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of desagrada vs designada

Shared letters: adegs. Private to "desagrada": r. Private to "designada": in.

"desagrada" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCV  ·  "designada" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • desagrada ← ddesagrada · deasgrada · desagarda · desaggrada · desagraad · desagradda · desagrdaa · desagrrada
  • designada ← ddesignada · decignada · deisgnada · desginada · desiganda · desiggnada · designaad · designadda

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "desagrada" and "designada" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "desagrada" is a verb and "designada" a participle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "desagrada" vs "designada" - which ranks higher?
"designada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,792 in our Spanish list, against #38,633 for "desagrada". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "desagrada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "designada" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #70,560 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "desagrada" and "designada" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "desagrada vs desarmada". 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 #70,560 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