engañavsenseñaTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,587
“engaña” frequency rank
#4,510
“enseña” frequency rank
19097
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature engaña enseña
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de engañar. Emblema, señal, imagen, medalla o bandera que identifica a una institución, grupo, marca, rango, etcétera, y sirve como distintivo.

Where the eye mixes engaña and enseña

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. engaña and enseña follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
engaña
6 ch
enseña

Look-alike desk: engaña vs enseña

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: engaña is [ẽŋˈgaɲa] while enseña is [ẽnˈseɲa]. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19097, 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]. enseña is at rank #4,510, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ẽnˈseɲa].

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 19097, this pair ranks #265,212 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of engaña vs enseña

Shared letters: aenñ. Private to "engaña": g. Private to "enseña": s.

"engaña" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "enseña" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "engaña" for "enseña" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "engaña" is a verb and "enseña" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "engaña" vs "enseña" - which ranks higher?
"enseña" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,510 in our Spanish list, against #14,587 for "engaña". 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 "engaña" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "enseña" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #265,212 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "engaña" and "enseña" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enanas vs engaña". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #265,212 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