admirabavsadmiradoWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: admiraba is a verb, admirado is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“admiraba” is a verb and “admirado” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,461
“admiraba” frequency rank
#21,209
“admirado” frequency rank
48670
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature admiraba admirado
Definition Primera persona del singular (yo) del pretérito imperfecto de indicativo de admirar. admirado ¦ plural: admirados ¦ femenino: admirada ¦ femenino plural: admiradas

Where the eye mixes admiraba and admirado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. admiraba and admirado follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
admiraba
8 ch
admirado

Look-alike desk: admiraba vs admirado

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: admiraba is [að̞miˈɾaβ̞a] while admirado is [að̞miˈɾað̞o]. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48670, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

admiraba is recorded at frequency rank #27,461, classified as averb, pronounced [að̞miˈɾaβ̞a]. admirado is at rank #21,209, tagged as anadj, pronounced [að̞miˈɾað̞o].

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 48670, this pair ranks #113,158 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of admiraba vs admirado

Shared letters: adimr. Private to "admiraba": b. Private to "admirado": o.

"admiraba" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV  ·  "admirado" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • admirabaaddmiraba · adimraba · admiarba · admiraab · admirabba · admirava · admirbaa · admirraba
  • admiradoaddmirado · adimrado · admiardo · admiraddo · admiraod · admirdao · admirrado · admmirado

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "admiraba" for "admirado" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "admiraba" is a verb and "admirado" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "admiraba" vs "admirado" - which ranks higher?
"admirado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,209 in our Spanish list, against #27,461 for "admiraba". 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 "admiraba" and "admirado" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "admiraba" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "admirado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #113,158 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "admiraba" and "admirado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "admirado vs admiradora". 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 #113,158 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