mediovsMejíaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: medio is a adjective, Mejía is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“medio” is an adjective and “Mejía” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#205
“medio” frequency rank
#13,091
“Mejía” frequency rank
13296
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature medio Mejía
Definition Que es una de las dos partes iguales en que se divide algo. Apellido.

Where the eye mixes medio and Mejía

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

5 ch
medio
5 ch
Mejía

Look-alike desk: medio vs Mejía

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: medio is [ˈmeð̞jo] while Mejía is [meˈxia]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13296, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

medio is recorded at frequency rank #205, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈmeð̞jo]. Mejía is at rank #13,091, tagged as aname, pronounced [meˈxia].

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 13296, this pair ranks #288,379 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of medio vs Mejía

Shared letters: em. Private to "medio": dio. Private to "Mejía": ají.

"medio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "Mejía" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • medioemdio · mdeio · meddio · medoi · meido · mmedio

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "medio" and "Mejía" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "medio" is an adjective and "Mejía" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "medio" vs "Mejía" - which ranks higher?
"medio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #205 in our Spanish list, against #13,091 for "Mejía". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "medio" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mejía" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #288,379 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "medio" and "Mejía" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "medita vs Mejía". 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 #288,379 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