guardadavsguardasWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#20,699
“guardada” frequency rank
#14,604
“guardas” frequency rank
35303
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guardada guardas
Definition Forma del femenino de guardado, participio de guardar o de guardarse. Forma del plural de guarda.

Where the eye mixes guardada and guardas

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. guardada runs 8 letters (CVVCCVCV) against guardas's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
guardada
7 ch
guardas

Look-alike desk: guardada vs guardas

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: guardada is [gwaɾˈð̞að̞a] while guardas is [ˈgwaɾð̞as]. 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 (participle vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guardada is recorded at frequency rank #20,699, classified as aparticiple, pronounced [gwaɾˈð̞að̞a]. guardas is at rank #14,604, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈgwaɾð̞as].

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 35303, this pair ranks #186,804 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of guardada vs guardas

Shared letters: adgru. Private to "guardada": -. Private to "guardas": s.

"guardada" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCV  ·  "guardas" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guardada ← gaurdada · gguardada · guadrada · guaradda · guardaad · guardadda · guarddaa · guarddada
  • guardas ← gaurdas · gguardas · guadras · guarads · guardass · guarddas · guardsa · guarrdas

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "guardada" for "guardas" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "guardada" is a participle and "guardas" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "guardada" vs "guardas" - which ranks higher?
"guardas" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,604 in our Spanish list, against #20,699 for "guardada". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "guardada" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guardas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,804 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guardada" and "guardas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guardada vs guardará". 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 #186,804 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