highvshijoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: high is a adjective, hijo is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“high” is an adjective and “hijo” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,149
“high” frequency rank
#327
“hijo” frequency rank
10476
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature high hijo
Definition Alto. Individuo respecto a cualquiera de sus progenitores.

Where the eye mixes high and hijo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
high
4 ch
hijo

Visual trap between high and hijo

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: high is /haɪ/ while hijo is [ˈixo]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10476, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

high is recorded at frequency rank #10,149, classified as anadj, pronounced /haɪ/. hijo is at rank #327, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈixo].

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 10476, this pair ranks #298,465 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of high vs hijo

Shared letters: hi. Private to "high": g. Private to "hijo": jo.

"high" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hijo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • highhgih · hhigh · higgh · highh · hihg · ihgh
  • hijohhijo · hijjo · hioj · hjio · ihjo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "high" for "hijo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "high" is an adjective and "hijo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "high" or "hijo" show up more?
"hijo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #327 in our Spanish list, against #10,149 for "high". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "high" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hijo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #298,465 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "high" and "hijo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "high vs higher". 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 #298,465 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