narcovsnavíoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#10,184
“narco” frequency rank
#18,326
“navío” frequency rank
28510
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature narco navío
Definition Narcotraficante. Barco de gran tamaño usado como nave de guerra, transporte o comercio a grandes distancias.

Where the eye mixes narco and navío

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
narco
5 ch
navío

Look-alike desk: narco vs navío

A purely visual mix-up. narco ([ˈnaɾko]) and navío ([naˈβ̞io]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28510, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

narco is recorded at frequency rank #10,184, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈnaɾko]. navío is at rank #18,326, tagged as anoun, pronounced [naˈβ̞io].

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 28510, this pair ranks #221,669 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of narco vs navío

Shared letters: ano. Private to "narco": cr. Private to "navío": .

"narco" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "navío" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • narcoanrco · nacro · narcco · naroc · narrco · nnarco · nraco

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "narco" for "navío" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈnaɾko] versus [naˈβ̞io]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "narco" vs "navío" - which ranks higher?
"narco" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,184 in our Spanish list, against #18,326 for "navío". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "narco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "navío" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #221,669 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "narco" and "navío" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "nai vs navío". 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 #221,669 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