melodíavsmelodyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“melodía” and “melody” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#10,533
“melodía” frequency rank
#33,230
“melody” frequency rank
43763
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature melodía melody
Definition Cualidad de la voz o el sonido de un instrumento que lo hace agradable o placentero Melodía.

Where the eye mixes melodía and melody

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. melodía runs 7 letters (CVCVCVV) against melody's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
melodía
6 ch
melody

Look-alike desk: melodía vs melody

A purely visual mix-up. melodía ([meloˈð̞ia]) and melody (/ˈmɛlədi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43763, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

melodía is recorded at frequency rank #10,533, classified as anoun, pronounced [meloˈð̞ia]. melody is at rank #33,230, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈmɛlədi/.

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 43763, this pair ranks #140,841 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of melodía vs melody

Shared letters: delmo. Private to "melodía": aí. Private to "melody": y.

"melodía" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "melody" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • melody ← emlody · meldoy · mellody · meloddy · melodyy · meloyd · meoldy · mleody

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "melodía" for "melody" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([meloˈð̞ia] versus /ˈmɛlədi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "melodía" or "melody" show up more?
"melodía" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,533 in our Spanish list, against #33,230 for "melody". 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 "melodía" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "melody" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #140,841 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "melodía" and "melody" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "melody vs memory". 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 #140,841 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