engañavsengañadaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,587
“engaña” frequency rank
#29,628
“engañada” frequency rank
44215
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature engaña engañada
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de engañar. Forma del femenino de engañado, participio de engañar.

Where the eye mixes engaña and engañada

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. engaña runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against engañada's 8 (VCCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
engaña
8 ch
engañada

Look-alike desk: engaña vs engañada

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: engaña is [ẽŋˈgaɲa] while engañada is [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞a]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “engaña” sits inside “engañada”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs participle), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44215, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

engaña is recorded at frequency rank #14,587, classified as averb, pronounced [ẽŋˈgaɲa]. engañada is at rank #29,628, tagged as aparticiple, pronounced [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞a].

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 44215, this pair ranks #138,306 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of engaña vs engañada

Shared letters: aegnñ. Private to "engaña": -. Private to "engañada": d.

"engaña" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "engañada" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "engaña" and "engañada" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "engaña" is a verb and "engañada" a participle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "engaña" or "engañada" show up more?
"engaña" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,587 in our Spanish list, against #29,628 for "engañada". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "engaña" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "engañada" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #138,306 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "engaña" and "engañada" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "encarnada vs engañada". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #138,306 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