Which to use
“fair” is an adjective and “fía” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #20,036
- “fair” frequency rank
- #40,850
- “fía” frequency rank
- 60886
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fair | fía |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dicho del juego: limpio (sin trampas). | Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de fiar. |
Where the eye mixes fair and fía
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. fair runs 4 letters (CVVC) against fía's 3 (CVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: fair vs fía
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fair is /fɛːr/ while fía is [ˈfia]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60886, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fair is recorded at frequency rank #20,036, classified as anadj, pronounced /fɛːr/. fía is at rank #40,850, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈfia].
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 60886, this pair ranks #57,339 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of fair vs fía
Shared letters: af. Private to "fair": ir. Private to "fía": í.
"fair" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "fía" · 3 letters · shape CVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- fair ← afir · fairr · fari · ffair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fair" for "fía" ever safe?
Frequency check: "fair" vs "fía" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "fair" and "fía" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "fair" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fía" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #57,339 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fair" and "fía" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fía vs fora". 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 #57,339 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.