engañanvsenlazanWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“engañan” and “enlazan” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,685
“engañan” frequency rank
#37,064
“enlazan” frequency rank
54749
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature engañan enlazan
Definition Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de engañar. Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de enlazar.

Where the eye mixes engañan and enlazan

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. engañan and enlazan follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
engañan
7 ch
enlazan

Why the eye confuses engañan with enlazan

A purely visual mix-up. engañan ([ẽŋˈgaɲãn]) and enlazan ([ẽnˈlasãn]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54749, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

engañan is recorded at frequency rank #17,685, classified as averb, pronounced [ẽŋˈgaɲãn]. enlazan is at rank #37,064, tagged as averb, pronounced [ẽnˈlasãn].

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 54749, this pair ranks #81,933 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of engañan vs enlazan

Shared letters: aen. Private to "engañan": . Private to "enlazan": lz.

"engañan" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC  ·  "enlazan" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • enlazanelnazan · enalzan · enlaazn · enlazann · enlazna · enlazzan · enllazan · enlzaan

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "engañan" and "enlazan" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([ẽŋˈgaɲãn] versus [ẽnˈlasãn]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "engañan" vs "enlazan" - which ranks higher?
"engañan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,685 in our Spanish list, against #37,064 for "enlazan". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "engañan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "enlazan" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,933 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "engañan" and "enlazan" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enlazan vs enlazando". 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 #81,933 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