fíavsfijasWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: fía is a verb, fijas is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fía” is a verb and “fijas” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,850
“fía” frequency rank
#11,779
“fijas” frequency rank
52629
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fía fijas
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de fiar. Forma del femenino plural de fijo.

Where the eye mixes fía and fijas

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. fía runs 3 letters (CVV) against fijas's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
fía
5 ch
fijas

Visual trap between fía and fijas

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fía is [ˈfia] while fijas is [ˈfixas]. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52629, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fía is recorded at frequency rank #40,850, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈfia]. fijas is at rank #11,779, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈfixas].

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 52629, this pair ranks #91,816 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fía vs fijas

Shared letters: af. Private to "fía": í. Private to "fijas": ijs.

"fía" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "fijas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fijas ← ffijas · fiajs · fijass · fijjas · fijsa · fjias · ifjas

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fía" and "fijas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fía" is a verb and "fijas" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "fía" or "fijas"?
"fijas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,779 in our Spanish list, against #40,850 for "fía". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fía" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fijas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #91,816 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fía" and "fijas" 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 #91,816 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