vigíavsvirginWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: vigía is a verb, virgin is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#31,154
“vigía” frequency rank
#25,862
“virgin” frequency rank
57016
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vigía virgin
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de vigiar. Virgen.

Where the eye mixes vigía and virgin

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. vigía runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against virgin's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
vigía
6 ch
virgin

Look-alike desk: vigía vs virgin

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vigía is [biˈxia] while virgin is /ˈvɜː.d͡ʒɪn/. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57016, 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]. virgin is at rank #25,862, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈvɜː.d͡ʒɪn/.

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 57016, this pair ranks #72,213 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vigía vs virgin

Shared letters: giv. Private to "vigía": aí. Private to "virgin": nr.

"vigía" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "virgin" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • virgin ← birgin · ivrgin · vigrin · virggin · virginn · virgni · virign · virrgin

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vigía" for "virgin" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vigía" is a verb and "virgin" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "vigía" or "virgin" show up more?
"virgin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,862 in our Spanish list, against #31,154 for "vigía". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "vigía" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "virgin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,213 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vigía" and "virgin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vigía 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 #72,213 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