pañosvspasoTell them apart

Which to use

“paños” and “paso” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#26,556
“paños” frequency rank
#343
“paso” frequency rank
26899
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paños paso
Definition Cualquier género de vestiduras. Cada uno de los movimientos de avance de las piernas al caminar.

Where the eye mixes paños and paso

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
paños
4 ch
paso

Why the eye confuses paños with paso

A purely visual mix-up. paños ([ˈpaɲos]) and paso ([ˈpaso]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26899, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paños is recorded at frequency rank #26,556, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈpaɲos]. paso is at rank #343, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpaso].

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 26899, this pair ranks #229,420 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paños vs paso

Shared letters: aops. Private to "paños": ñ. Private to "paso": -.

"paños" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "paso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pasoapso · paos · passo · ppaso · psao

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "paños" for "paso" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈpaɲos] versus [ˈpaso]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "paños" vs "paso" - which ranks higher?
"paso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #343 in our Spanish list, against #26,556 for "paños". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "paños" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "paso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #229,420 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paños" and "paso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pacos vs paños". 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 #229,420 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