reciovsregidoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: recio is a adjective, regido is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“recio” is an adjective and “regido” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,373
“recio” frequency rank
#32,844
“regido” frequency rank
65217
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature recio regido
Definition Fuerte, resistente. Participio de regir.

Where the eye mixes recio and regido

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. recio runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against regido's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
recio
6 ch
regido

Visual trap between recio and regido

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: recio is [ˈresjo] while regido is [reˈxið̞o]. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65217, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

recio is recorded at frequency rank #32,373, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈresjo]. regido is at rank #32,844, tagged as averb, pronounced [reˈxið̞o].

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 65217, this pair ranks #43,302 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of recio vs regido

Shared letters: eior. Private to "recio": c. Private to "regido": dg.

"recio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "regido" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • recio ← ercio · rceio · reccio · recoi · reico · resio · rrecio
  • regido ← ergido · regdio · reggido · regiddo · regiod · reigdo · rgeido · rregido

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "recio" for "regido" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "recio" is an adjective and "regido" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "recio" or "regido" show up more?
"recio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,373 in our Spanish list, against #32,844 for "regido". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "recio" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "regido" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,302 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "recio" and "regido" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "regado vs regido". 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 #43,302 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