díavsdiaryWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#76
“día” frequency rank
#45,876
“diary” frequency rank
45952
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature día diary
Definition Tiempo que tarda la Tierra en dar una vuelta alrededor de su eje, equivalente a 24 horas. Diario o publicación diaria.

Where the eye mixes día and diary

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

3 ch
día
5 ch
diary

Visual trap between día and diary

A purely visual mix-up. día ([ˈd̪ia]) and diary (/ˈdaɪəri/) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45952, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

día is recorded at frequency rank #76, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈd̪ia]. diary is at rank #45,876, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdaɪəri/.

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 45952, this pair ranks #128,512 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of día vs diary

Shared letters: ad. Private to "día": í. Private to "diary": iry.

"día" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "diary" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • diarydairy · ddiary · diarry · diaryy · diayr · diray · idary

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "día" for "diary" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈd̪ia] versus /ˈdaɪəri/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "día" or "diary" show up more?
"día" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #76 in our Spanish list, against #45,876 for "diary". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "día" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "diary" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #128,512 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "día" and "diary" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diary vs dirty". 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 #128,512 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