engañadavsengañadoWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#29,628
“engañada” frequency rank
#12,145
“engañado” frequency rank
41773
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature engañada engañado
Definition Forma del femenino de engañado, participio de engañar. Participio de engañar o de engañarse.

Where the eye mixes engañada and engañado

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

8 ch
engañada
8 ch
engañado

Look-alike desk: engañada vs engañado

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: engañada is [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞a] while engañado is [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞o]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - a in “engañada” becomes o in “engañado”, and the parts of speech differ too (participle vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41773, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

engañada is recorded at frequency rank #29,628, classified as aparticiple, pronounced [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞a]. engañado is at rank #12,145, tagged as averb, pronounced [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞o].

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 41773, this pair ranks #151,879 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of engañada vs engañado

Shared letters: adegnñ. Private to "engañada": -. Private to "engañado": o.

"engañada" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV  ·  "engañado" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "engañada" for "engañado" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "engañada" is a participle and "engañado" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "engañada" or "engañado" show up more?
"engañado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,145 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "engañada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "engañado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,879 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "engañada" and "engañado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "encarnada vs engañada". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #151,879 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