acertadosvsacertijosConfusable pair

Quick tell: acertados is a participle, acertijos is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“acertados” is a participle and “acertijos” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,158
“acertados” frequency rank
#46,296
“acertijos” frequency rank
87454
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acertados acertijos
Definition Forma del plural de acertado, participio de acertar. Forma del plural de acertijo.

Where the eye mixes acertados and acertijos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. acertados and acertijos follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
acertados
9 ch
acertijos

Visual trap between acertados and acertijos

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: acertados is [aseɾˈt̪að̞os] while acertijos is [aseɾˈt̪ixos]. 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 (participle vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 87454, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acertados is recorded at frequency rank #41,158, classified as aparticiple, pronounced [aseɾˈt̪að̞os]. acertijos is at rank #46,296, tagged as anoun, pronounced [aseɾˈt̪ixos].

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 87454, this pair ranks #4,486 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of acertados vs acertijos

Shared letters: aceorst. Private to "acertados": d. Private to "acertijos": ij.

"acertados" · 9 letters · shape VCVCCVCVC  ·  "acertijos" · 9 letters · shape VCVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acertados ← accertados · aceratdos · acerrtados · acertaddos · acertadoss · acertadso · acertaods · acertdaos
  • acertijos ← accertijos · aceritjos · acerrtijos · acertijjos · acertijoss · acertijso · acertiojs · acertjios

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acertados" for "acertijos" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "acertados" is a participle and "acertijos" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "acertados" or "acertijos" show up more?
"acertados" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,158 in our Spanish list, against #46,296 for "acertijos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "acertados" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acertijos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #4,486 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acertados" and "acertijos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acertados vs aterrados". 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 #4,486 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