dignevsdireTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#44,120
“digne” frequency rank
#17,412
“dire” frequency rank
61532
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature digne dire
Definition Primera persona del singular (yo) del presente de subjuntivo de dignarse. Director.

Where the eye mixes digne and dire

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. digne runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against dire's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
digne
4 ch
dire

Why the eye confuses digne with dire

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: digne is [ˈd̪iɣ̞ne] while dire is [ˈd̪iɾe]. 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 61532, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

digne is recorded at frequency rank #44,120, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈd̪iɣ̞ne]. dire is at rank #17,412, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈd̪iɾe].

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 61532, this pair ranks #55,122 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of digne vs dire

Shared letters: dei. Private to "digne": gn. Private to "dire": r.

"digne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "dire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • digne ← ddigne · dgine · digen · diggne · dignne · dinge · idgne
  • dire ← ddire · dier · dirre · drie · idre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "digne" for "dire" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "digne" is a verb and "dire" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "digne" or "dire" show up more?
"dire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,412 in our Spanish list, against #44,120 for "digne". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "digne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #55,122 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "digne" and "dire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dig vs digne". 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 #55,122 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