vigíavsVilmaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: vigía is a verb, Vilma is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vigía” is a verb and “Vilma” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,154
“vigía” frequency rank
#40,069
“Vilma” frequency rank
71223
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vigía Vilma
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de vigiar. Nombre de pila de mujer

Where the eye mixes vigía and Vilma

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. vigía (CVCVV) and Vilma (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
vigía
5 ch
Vilma

Look-alike desk: vigía vs Vilma

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vigía is [biˈxia] while Vilma is [ˈbilma]. 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 name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71223, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vigía is recorded at frequency rank #31,154, classified as averb, pronounced [biˈxia]. Vilma is at rank #40,069, tagged as aname, pronounced [ˈbilma].

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 71223, this pair ranks #27,963 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vigía vs Vilma

Shared letters: aiv. Private to "vigía": gí. Private to "Vilma": lm.

"vigía" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "Vilma" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Vilma ← bilma · ivlma · vilam · villma · vilmma · vimla · vlima · vvilma

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vigía" for "Vilma" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vigía" is a verb and "Vilma" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "vigía" or "Vilma" show up more?
"vigía" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,154 in our Spanish list, against #40,069 for "Vilma". 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 "vigía" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Vilma" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,963 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vigía" and "Vilma" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Vilma vs Vira". 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 #27,963 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