cadavscitadaWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#89
“cada” frequency rank
#10,112
“citada” frequency rank
10201
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cada citada
Definition Designa una cosa o persona entre varias o entre una serie de ellas. Forma del femenino de citado, participio de citar o de citarse.

Where the eye mixes cada and citada

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cada
6 ch
citada

Look-alike desk: cada vs citada

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cada is [ˈkað̞a] while citada is [siˈt̪að̞a]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs participle), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10201, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cada is recorded at frequency rank #89, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈkað̞a]. citada is at rank #10,112, tagged as aparticiple, pronounced [siˈt̪að̞a].

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 10201, this pair ranks #299,481 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cada vs citada

Shared letters: acd. Private to "cada": -. Private to "citada": it.

"cada" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "citada" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cadaacda · caad · cadda · ccada · cdaa
  • citadaccitada · ciatda · citaad · citadda · citdaa · cittada · ctiada · ictada

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cada" and "citada" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cada" is an adjective and "citada" a participle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "cada" or "citada" show up more?
"cada" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #89 in our Spanish list, against #10,112 for "citada". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "citada" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #299,481 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cada" and "citada" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "calada vs citada". 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 #299,481 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