penitencia
[peniˈt̪ẽnsja]
The verdict
“penitencia” is a moderately-common Spanish word, ranked #17,234 in Spanish word frequency and used as a noun.
- #17,234
- frequency rank, Spanish
- 10
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Sacramento de algunas religiones cristianas, que por medio de este, el sacerdote perdona los pecados al pecador arrepentido cuando los confiesa, haciendo un posterior propósito de enmienda.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | penitencia |
| Language | Spanish |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [peniˈt̪ẽnsja] |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #17,234 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “penitencia” sits in Spanish frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The Spanish entry for penitencia is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [peniˈt̪ẽnsja]. Corpus data places it at rank #17,234 in overall Spanish word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for penitencia, with forms such as "epnitencia", "peintencia", and "penietncia". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. 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 penitencia, spelled P-E-N-I-T-E-N-C-I-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Sacramento de algunas religiones cristianas, que por medio de este, el sacerdote perdona los pecados al pecador arrepentido cuando los confiesa, haciendo un posterior propósito de enmienda.
- 2Virtud que consiste en arrepentirse por haber pecado.
- 3Pena que el cura confesor impone al penitente como expiación de sus pecados.
- 4Acción en la que una persona se mortifica, ya sea interna o externamente.
- 5Cualquier cosa que deba aguantarse.
- 6Castigo público.
- 7En algunos juegos, una pequeña pena impuesta al perdedor. No supone un castigo, sino una acción poco agradable.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: epnitencia,peintencia,penietncia,penitecnia,penitencai,penitenccia,penitenica,penitenncia,penitensia,penitnecia,penittencia,pennitencia,pentiencia,pneitencia,ppenitencia
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of penitencia - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Edit distance from "penitencia"
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “penitencia, Spanish word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/es/palabra/penitencia
Frequently Asked Questions
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What does "penitencia" mean?
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Using “penitencia”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct Spanish spelling is P-E-N-I-T-E-N-C-I-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [peniˈt̪ẽnsja] (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 P in our Spanish index: