engañadosvsengañosWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: engañados is a participle, engaños is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“engañados” is a participle and “engaños” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,976
“engañados” frequency rank
#17,126
“engaños” frequency rank
38102
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature engañados engaños
Definition Forma del plural de engañado, participio de engañar. Forma del plural de engaño.

Where the eye mixes engañados and engaños

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. engañados runs 9 letters (VCCVCVCVC) against engaños's 7 (VCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
engañados
7 ch
engaños

Look-alike desk: engañados vs engaños

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: engañados is [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞os] while engaños is [ẽŋˈgaɲos]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (participle vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

engañados is recorded at frequency rank #20,976, classified as aparticiple, pronounced [ẽŋgaˈɲað̞os]. engaños is at rank #17,126, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ẽŋˈgaɲos].

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 38102, this pair ranks #171,803 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of engañados vs engaños

Shared letters: aegnosñ. Private to "engañados": d. Private to "engaños": -.

"engañados" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCVC  ·  "engaños" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "engañados" for "engaños" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "engañados" is a participle and "engaños" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "engañados" vs "engaños" - which ranks higher?
"engaños" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,126 in our Spanish list, against #20,976 for "engañados". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "engañados" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "engaños" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #171,803 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "engañados" and "engaños" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "engañados vs enganchados". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #171,803 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