pactavspatyWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#47,977
“pacta” frequency rank
#34,257
“paty” frequency rank
82234
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pacta paty
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de pactar. Hamburguesa.

Where the eye mixes pacta and paty

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pacta runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against paty's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
pacta
4 ch
paty

Visual trap between pacta and paty

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pacta is [ˈpakt̪a] while paty is [ˈpat̪i]. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82234, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pacta is recorded at frequency rank #47,977, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈpakt̪a]. paty is at rank #34,257, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpat̪i].

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 82234, this pair ranks #9,458 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pacta vs paty

Shared letters: apt. Private to "pacta": c. Private to "paty": y.

"pacta" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "paty" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pactaapcta · pacat · paccta · pactta · patca · pcata · ppacta
  • patyapty · patyy · payt · ppaty · ptay

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pacta" and "paty" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pacta" is a verb and "paty" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "pacta" or "paty" show up more?
"paty" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,257 in our Spanish list, against #47,977 for "pacta". 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 "pacta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "paty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,458 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pacta" and "paty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pacta vs parca". 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 #9,458 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