ávidovshabidoConfusable pair

Quick tell: ávido is a adjective, habido is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#35,837
“ávido” frequency rank
#2,565
“habido” frequency rank
38402
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ávido habido
Definition Que siente un fuerte e intenso deseo de conseguir o hacer algo. Participio de haber.

Same sound, different letters: ávido vs habido

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters. ávido runs 5 letters (VCVCV) against habido's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
ávido
6 ch
habido

Homophone desk: ávido vs habido

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: ávido and habido carry the same recorded pronunciation, [ˈaβ̞ið̞o]. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38402, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ávido is recorded at frequency rank #35,837, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈaβ̞ið̞o]. habido is at rank #2,565, tagged as averb, pronounced [aˈβ̞ið̞o].

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 38402, this pair ranks #170,227 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ávido vs habido

Shared letters: dio. Private to "ávido": vá. Private to "habido": abh.

"ávido" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "habido" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • habido ← ahbido · habbido · habdio · habiddo · habiod · haibdo · havido · hbaido

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ávido" for "habido" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ávido" is an adjective and "habido" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "ávido" or "habido" show up more?
"habido" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,565 in our Spanish list, against #35,837 for "ávido". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ávido" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "habido" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #170,227 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ávido" and "habido" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "alió vs ávido". 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 #170,227 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