debatevsdebatióConfusable pair

Quick tell: debate is a noun, debatió is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“debate” is a noun and “debatió” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,263
“debate” frequency rank
#43,497
“debatió” frequency rank
44760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature debate debatió
Definition Discusión de diversas posturas u opiniones, especialmente si son opuestas o contrapuestas. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de debatir o de debatirse.

Where the eye mixes debate and debatió

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
debate
7 ch
debatió

Look-alike desk: debate vs debatió

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: debate is [d̪eˈβ̞at̪e] while debatió is [d̪eβ̞aˈt̪jo]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

debate is recorded at frequency rank #1,263, classified as anoun, pronounced [d̪eˈβ̞at̪e]. debatió is at rank #43,497, tagged as averb, pronounced [d̪eβ̞aˈt̪jo].

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 44760, this pair ranks #135,280 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of debate vs debatió

Shared letters: abdet. Private to "debate": -. Private to "debatió": .

"debate" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "debatió" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • debatedbeate · ddebate · deabte · debaet · debatte · debbate · debtae · devate

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "debate" and "debatió" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "debate" is a noun and "debatió" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "debate" or "debatió" show up more?
"debate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,263 in our Spanish list, against #43,497 for "debatió". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "debate" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "debatió" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #135,280 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "debate" and "debatió" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "debatida vs debatió". 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 #135,280 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