adelantadovsadelantadosTell them apart

Quick tell: adelantado is a adjective, adelantados is a participle, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“adelantado” is an adjective and “adelantados” is a participle - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,946
“adelantado” frequency rank
#34,862
“adelantados” frequency rank
42808
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature adelantado adelantados
Definition Atrevido, que no guarda respeto ni atención. Forma del plural de adelantado, participio de adelantar o de adelantarse.

Where the eye mixes adelantado and adelantados

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 10 letters in sequence.

10 ch
adelantado
11 ch
adelantados

Why the eye confuses adelantado with adelantados

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: adelantado is [að̞elãn̪ˈt̪að̞o] while adelantados is [að̞elãn̪ˈt̪að̞os]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “adelantado” sits inside “adelantados”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs participle), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42808, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

adelantado is recorded at frequency rank #7,946, classified as anadj, pronounced [að̞elãn̪ˈt̪að̞o]. adelantados is at rank #34,862, tagged as aparticiple, pronounced [að̞elãn̪ˈt̪að̞os].

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 42808, this pair ranks #146,181 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of adelantado vs adelantados

Shared letters: adelnot. Private to "adelantado": -. Private to "adelantados": s.

"adelantado" · 10 letters · shape VCVCVCCVCV  ·  "adelantados" · 11 letters · shape VCVCVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • adelantadoaddelantado · adealntado · adelanatdo · adelanntado · adelantaddo · adelantaod · adelantdao · adelanttado
  • adelantadosaddelantados · adealntados · adelanatdos · adelanntados · adelantaddos · adelantadoss · adelantadso · adelantaods

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "adelantado" and "adelantados" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "adelantado" is an adjective and "adelantados" a participle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "adelantado" or "adelantados" show up more?
"adelantado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,946 in our Spanish list, against #34,862 for "adelantados". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "adelantado" and "adelantados" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "adelantado" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "adelantados" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,181 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "adelantado" and "adelantados" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adelantadas vs adelantados". 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 #146,181 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