posesiónvspositionWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,873
“posesión” frequency rank
#49,868
“position” frequency rank
53741
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature posesión position
Definition Acción de poseer, poseerse o tener algo. Posición.

Where the eye mixes posesión and position

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

8 ch
posesión
8 ch
position

Why the eye confuses posesión with position

A purely visual mix-up. posesión ([poseˈsjõn]) and position (/po.zi.sjɔ̃/) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

posesión is recorded at frequency rank #3,873, classified as anoun, pronounced [poseˈsjõn]. position is at rank #49,868, tagged as anoun, pronounced /po.zi.sjɔ̃/.

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 53741, this pair ranks #86,437 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of posesión vs position

Shared letters: inops. Private to "posesión": . Private to "position": t.

"posesión" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC  ·  "position" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • positionopsition · pocition · poistion · posiiton · positino · positionn · positoin · posittion

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "posesión" and "position" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([poseˈsjõn] versus /po.zi.sjɔ̃/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "posesión" vs "position" - which ranks higher?
"posesión" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,873 in our Spanish list, against #49,868 for "position". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "posesión" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "position" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #86,437 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "posesión" and "position" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "posiciona vs position". 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 #86,437 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