señalvssendWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#1,918
“señal” frequency rank
#38,964
“send” frequency rank
40882
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature señal send
Definition Marca o nota que se pone o hay en las cosas para darlas a conocer y distinguirlas de otras. Mandar, enviar.

Where the eye mixes señal and send

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. señal runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against send's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
señal
4 ch
send

Look-alike desk: señal vs send

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: señal is [seˈɲal] while send is /ˈsɛnd/. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40882, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

señal is recorded at frequency rank #1,918, classified as anoun, pronounced [seˈɲal]. send is at rank #38,964, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈsɛnd/.

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 40882, this pair ranks #156,685 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of señal vs send

Shared letters: es. Private to "señal": alñ. Private to "send": dn.

"señal" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "send" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • send ← cend · esnd · sedn · sendd · sennd · sned · ssend

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "señal" for "send" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "señal" is a noun and "send" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "señal" vs "send" - which ranks higher?
"señal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,918 in our Spanish list, against #38,964 for "send". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "señal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "send" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #156,685 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "señal" and "send" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sei vs send". 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 #156,685 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