abajovsacasoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: abajo is a adverb, acaso is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“abajo” is an adverb and “acaso” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#906
“abajo” frequency rank
#1,798
“acaso” frequency rank
2704
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abajo acaso
Definition Hacia un lugar o parte inferior, o en un lugar o parte inferior. Casualidad, suceso imprevisto o fortuito.

Where the eye mixes abajo and acaso

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. abajo and acaso follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
abajo
5 ch
acaso

Look-alike desk: abajo vs acaso

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: abajo is [aˈβ̞axo] while acaso is [aˈkaso]. 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 (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2704, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

abajo is recorded at frequency rank #906, classified as anadv, pronounced [aˈβ̞axo]. acaso is at rank #1,798, tagged as anoun, pronounced [aˈkaso].

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 2704, this pair ranks #319,821 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of abajo vs acaso

Shared letters: ao. Private to "abajo": bj. Private to "acaso": cs.

"abajo" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "acaso" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • abajoaabjo · abajjo · abaoj · abbajo · abjao · avajo · baajo
  • acasoaacso · acaos · acasso · accaso · acsao · caaso

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "abajo" for "acaso" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abajo" is an adverb and "acaso" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "abajo" or "acaso"?
"abajo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #906 in our Spanish list, against #1,798 for "acaso". 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 "abajo" and "acaso" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "abajo" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acaso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #319,821 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abajo" and "acaso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ácaros vs acaso". 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 #319,821 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