regadíovsresidióWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#29,813
“regadío” frequency rank
#44,980
“residió” frequency rank
74793
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature regadío residió
Definition Dicho de un campo de cultivo, que puede ser regado. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de residir.

Where the eye mixes regadío and residió

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. regadío and residió follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
regadío
7 ch
residió

Why the eye confuses regadío with residió

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: regadío is [reɣ̞aˈð̞io] while residió is [resiˈð̞jo]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74793, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

regadío is recorded at frequency rank #29,813, classified as anadj, pronounced [reɣ̞aˈð̞io]. residió is at rank #44,980, tagged as averb, pronounced [resiˈð̞jo].

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 74793, this pair ranks #20,687 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of regadío vs residió

Shared letters: der. Private to "regadío": agoí. Private to "residió": isó.

"regadío" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "residió" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "regadío" for "residió" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "regadío" is an adjective and "residió" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "regadío" or "residió"?
"regadío" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,813 in our Spanish list, against #44,980 for "residió". 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 "regadío" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "residió" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,687 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "regadío" and "residió" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "residían vs residió". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #20,687 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