delantevsdonanteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: delante is a adverb, donante is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“delante” is an adverb and “donante” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,543
“delante” frequency rank
#15,074
“donante” frequency rank
16617
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature delante donante
Definition Antes o con preferencia de lugar. Que dona o ha donado algo.

Where the eye mixes delante and donante

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. delante and donante follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
delante
7 ch
donante

Visual trap between delante and donante

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: delante is [d̪eˈlãn̪t̪e] while donante is [d̪oˈnãn̪t̪e]. 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 (adverb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16617, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

delante is recorded at frequency rank #1,543, classified as anadv, pronounced [d̪eˈlãn̪t̪e]. donante is at rank #15,074, tagged as anadj, pronounced [d̪oˈnãn̪t̪e].

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 16617, this pair ranks #275,413 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of delante vs donante

Shared letters: adent. Private to "delante": l. Private to "donante": o.

"delante" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "donante" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • delante ← ddelante · dealnte · delanet · delannte · delantte · delatne · dellante · delnate
  • donante ← ddonante · dnoante · doannte · donanet · donannte · donantte · donatne · donnante

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "delante" for "donante" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "delante" is an adverb and "donante" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "delante" or "donante"?
"delante" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,543 in our Spanish list, against #15,074 for "donante". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "delante" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donante" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #275,413 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "delante" and "donante" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "donan vs donante". 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 #275,413 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