secanvsseñasWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: secan is a verb, señas is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“secan” is a verb and “señas” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,455
“secan” frequency rank
#13,144
“señas” frequency rank
52599
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature secan señas
Definition Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de secar. Dirección: datos del domicilio o forma de contacto de alguien.

Where the eye mixes secan and señas

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

5 ch
secan
5 ch
señas

Visual trap between secan and señas

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: secan is [ˈsekãn] while señas is [ˈseɲas]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52599, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

secan is recorded at frequency rank #39,455, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈsekãn]. señas is at rank #13,144, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈseɲas].

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 52599, this pair ranks #91,948 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of secan vs señas

Shared letters: aes. Private to "secan": cn. Private to "señas": ñ.

"secan" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "señas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • secan ← cecan · escan · scean · seacn · secann · seccan · secna · ssecan

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "secan" and "señas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "secan" is a verb and "señas" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "secan" or "señas" show up more?
"señas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,144 in our Spanish list, against #39,455 for "secan". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "secan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "señas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #91,948 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "secan" and "señas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "secan vs seta". 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 #91,948 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