cortadasvscostadosWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: cortadas is a participle, costados is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cortadas” is a participle and “costados” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,202
“cortadas” frequency rank
#17,394
“costados” frequency rank
35596
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cortadas costados
Definition Forma del femenino plural de cortado, participio de cortar o de cortarse. Forma del plural de costado.

Where the eye mixes cortadas and costados

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

8 ch
cortadas
8 ch
costados

Look-alike desk: cortadas vs costados

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cortadas is [koɾˈt̪að̞as] while costados is [kosˈt̪að̞os]. 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 (participle vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35596, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cortadas is recorded at frequency rank #18,202, classified as aparticiple, pronounced [koɾˈt̪að̞as]. costados is at rank #17,394, tagged as anoun, pronounced [kosˈt̪að̞os].

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 35596, this pair ranks #185,220 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cortadas vs costados

Shared letters: acdost. Private to "cortadas": r. Private to "costados": -.

"cortadas" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "costados" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cortadasccortadas · coratdas · corrtadas · cortaads · cortadass · cortaddas · cortadsa · cortdaas
  • costadosccostados · cosatdos · cosstados · costaddos · costadoss · costadso · costaods · costdaos

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cortadas" and "costados" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cortadas" is a participle and "costados" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cortadas" or "costados"?
"costados" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,394 in our Spanish list, against #18,202 for "cortadas". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cortadas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "costados" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,220 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cortadas" and "costados" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cortadas vs cortador". 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 #185,220 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