gato
[ˈgat̪o]
The verdict
“gato” is a regularly-used Spanish word, ranked #2,081 in Spanish word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,081
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - (Felis catus) Animal carnívoro de la familia de los felinos, domesticado como animal de compañía desde al menos el 3500 a. C.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gato |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ˈgat̪o] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,081 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gato” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for gato is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ˈgat̪o]. Corpus data places it at rank #2,081 in overall Spanish word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for gato, with forms such as "agto", "gaot", and "gatto". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "go", "gay", "get", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct Spanish form is gato, spelled G-A-T-O.
Definition
- 1(Felis catus) Animal carnívoro de la familia de los felinos, domesticado como animal de compañía desde al menos el 3500 a. C.
- 2Por extensión, cualquier ejemplar de la familia de los félidos, que comprende 37 especies de mamíferos carnívoros.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: agto,gaot,gatto,ggato,gtao
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of gato - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 Spanish corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "gato"?
What does "gato" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “gato”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is G-A-T-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈgat̪o] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “go” - see the side-by-side comparison. gato vs go
- Browse more Spanish words and confusable pairs in the same reference. Spanish words
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.