palabravspasaráWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#555
“palabra” frequency rank
#4,274
“pasará” frequency rank
4829
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature palabra pasará
Definition Unidad mínima de significado de una lengua o idioma. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del futuro de indicativo de pasar.

Where the eye mixes palabra and pasará

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. palabra runs 7 letters (CVCVCCV) against pasará's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
palabra
6 ch
pasará

Look-alike desk: palabra vs pasará

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: palabra is [paˈlaβ̞ɾa] while pasará is [pasaˈɾa]. 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 4829, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

palabra is recorded at frequency rank #555, classified as anoun, pronounced [paˈlaβ̞ɾa]. pasará is at rank #4,274, tagged as averb, pronounced [pasaˈɾa].

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 4829, this pair ranks #315,152 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of palabra vs pasará

Shared letters: apr. Private to "palabra": bl. Private to "pasará": sá.

"palabra" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "pasará" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • palabra ← aplabra · paalbra · palabar · palabbra · palabrra · palarba · palavra · palbara

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "palabra" and "pasará" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "palabra" is a noun and "pasará" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "palabra" or "pasará" show up more?
"palabra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #555 in our Spanish list, against #4,274 for "pasará". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "palabra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pasará" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #315,152 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "palabra" and "pasará" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pasará vs pícara". 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 #315,152 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