garravsgordaTell them apart

Quick tell: garra is a noun, gorda is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“garra” is a noun and “gorda” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,592
“garra” frequency rank
#5,738
“gorda” frequency rank
22330
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature garra gorda
Definition Uñas largas, fuertes y curvadas que poseen algunos animales, especialmente carnívoros. Forma del femenino singular de gordo.

Where the eye mixes garra and gorda

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. garra and gorda follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
garra
5 ch
gorda

Visual trap between garra and gorda

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: garra is [ˈgara] while gorda is [ˈgoɾð̞a]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22330, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

garra is recorded at frequency rank #16,592, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈgara]. gorda is at rank #5,738, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈgoɾð̞a].

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 22330, this pair ranks #250,826 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of garra vs gorda

Shared letters: agr. Private to "garra": -. Private to "gorda": do.

"garra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "gorda" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • garra ← agrra · garar · ggarra · grara
  • gorda ← ggorda · godra · gorad · gordda · gorrda · groda · ogrda

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "garra" for "gorda" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "garra" is a noun and "gorda" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "garra" vs "gorda" - which ranks higher?
"gorda" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,738 in our Spanish list, against #16,592 for "garra". 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 "garra" and "gorda" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "garra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gorda" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #250,826 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "garra" and "gorda" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gara vs garra". 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 #250,826 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