hijitovshirióWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hijito is a noun, hirió is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hijito” is a noun and “hirió” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,647
“hijito” frequency rank
#20,068
“hirió” frequency rank
53715
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hijito hirió
Definition Diminutivo de hijo Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de herir.

Where the eye mixes hijito and hirió

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. hijito runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against hirió's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
hijito
5 ch
hirió

Visual trap between hijito and hirió

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hijito is [iˈxit̪o] while hirió is [iˈɾjo]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53715, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hijito is recorded at frequency rank #33,647, classified as anoun, pronounced [iˈxit̪o]. hirió is at rank #20,068, tagged as averb, pronounced [iˈɾjo].

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 53715, this pair ranks #86,569 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hijito vs hirió

Shared letters: hi. Private to "hijito": jot. Private to "hirió": ró.

"hijito" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "hirió" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hijito ← hhijito · hiijto · hijiot · hijitto · hijjito · hijtio · hjiito · ihjito

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "hijito" for "hirió" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hijito" is a noun and "hirió" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "hijito" vs "hirió" - which ranks higher?
"hirió" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,068 in our Spanish list, against #33,647 for "hijito". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hijito" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hirió" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #86,569 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hijito" and "hirió" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "higo vs hirió". 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 #86,569 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