castiganvscastigaráTell them apart

Which to use

“castigan” and “castigará” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,800
“castigan” frequency rank
#44,032
“castigará” frequency rank
74832
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature castigan castigará
Definition Tercera persona del plural (ellos, ellas; ustedes, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de castigar o de castigarse. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del futuro de indicativo de castigar o de castigarse.

Where the eye mixes castigan and castigará

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. castigan runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against castigará's 9 (CVCCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
castigan
9 ch
castigará

Visual trap between castigan and castigará

A purely visual mix-up. castigan ([kasˈt̪iɣ̞ãn]) and castigará ([kast̪iɣ̞aˈɾa]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74832, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

castigan is recorded at frequency rank #30,800, classified as averb, pronounced [kasˈt̪iɣ̞ãn]. castigará is at rank #44,032, tagged as averb, pronounced [kast̪iɣ̞aˈɾa].

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 74832, this pair ranks #20,632 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of castigan vs castigará

Shared letters: acgist. Private to "castigan": n. Private to "castigará": .

"castigan" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "castigará" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • castiganacstigan · casitgan · casstigan · castgian · castiagn · castigann · castiggan · castigna

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "castigan" for "castigará" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([kasˈt̪iɣ̞ãn] versus [kast̪iɣ̞aˈɾa]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "castigan" or "castigará"?
"castigan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,800 in our Spanish list, against #44,032 for "castigará". 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 "castigan" and "castigará" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "castigan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "castigará" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,632 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "castigan" and "castigará" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "castigadas vs castigará". 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 #20,632 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