cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan

/[ˈkwãn̪d̪o el ˈɣ̞at̪o ˈno esˈt̪a | los raˈt̪ones ˈβ̞ajlãn]/ proverb

The verdict

“cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan” is outside the top-ranked Spanish vocabulary, used as a proverb — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency Spanish
42
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: En ausencia de un jefe o superior los subordinados se relajan y hacen cosas que normalmente no harían.

Key facts for cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan
PropertyValue
Headwordcuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan
LanguageSpanish
Part of speechProverb
IPA[ˈkwãn̪d̪o el ˈɣ̞at̪o ˈno esˈt̪a | los raˈt̪ones ˈβ̞ajlãn]
Letters42
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan” sits in Spanish frequency

cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan falls outside the top-100,000 ranked Spanish words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The Spanish entry for cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan is 42 letters long, classified as a proverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈkwãn̪d̪o el ˈɣ̞at̪o ˈno esˈt̪a | los raˈt̪ones ˈβ̞ajlãn]. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "En ausencia de un jefe o superior los subordinados se relajan y hacen cosas que normalmente no harían.".

No misspelling variants are generated for cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable Spanish patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct Spanish form is cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan, spelled C-U-A-N-D-O- -E-L- -G-A-T-O- -N-O- -E-S-T-Á-,- -L-O-S- -R-A-T-O-N-E-S- -B-A-I-L-A-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    En ausencia de un jefe o superior los subordinados se relajan y hacen cosas que normalmente no harían.

Synonyms

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan"?
"cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan" is spelled C-U-A-N-D-O- -E-L- -G-A-T-O- -N-O- -E-S-T-Á-,- -L-O-S- -R-A-T-O-N-E-S- -B-A-I-L-A-N. The IPA pronunciation is [ˈkwãn̪d̪o el ˈɣ̞at̪o ˈno esˈt̪a | los raˈt̪ones ˈβ̞ajlãn].
What does "cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan" mean?
As a proverb, "cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan" means: En ausencia de un jefe o superior los subordinados se relajan y hacen cosas que normalmente no harían.
How do you pronounce "cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan" is [ˈkwãn̪d̪o el ˈɣ̞at̪o ˈno esˈt̪a | los raˈt̪ones ˈβ̞ajlãn]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan" come from?
"cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan" is a Spanish word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “cuando el gato no está, los ratones bailan”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct Spanish spelling is C-U-A-N-D-O- -E-L- -G-A-T-O- -N-O- -E-S-T-Á-,- -L-O-S- -R-A-T-O-N-E-S- -B-A-I-L-A-N — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as [ˈkwãn̪d̪o el ˈɣ̞at̪o ˈno esˈt̪a | los raˈt̪ones ˈβ̞ajlãn] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
  • Browse more Spanish words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Spanish words

Nearby Spanish words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our Spanish index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.