pasovspersoTell them apart

Which to use

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

#343
“paso” frequency rank
#46,116
“perso” frequency rank
46459
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paso perso
Definition Cada uno de los movimientos de avance de las piernas al caminar. Capacidad de hablar o actuar sin inhibiciones.

Where the eye mixes paso and perso

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

4 ch
paso
5 ch
perso

Visual trap between paso and perso

A purely visual mix-up. paso ([ˈpaso]) and perso ([ˈpeɾso]) 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 46459, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paso is recorded at frequency rank #343, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈpaso]. perso is at rank #46,116, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpeɾso].

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 46459, this pair ranks #125,590 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paso vs perso

Shared letters: ops. Private to "paso": a. Private to "perso": er.

"paso" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "perso" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pasoapso · paos · passo · ppaso · psao
  • persoeprso · persso · pesro · pperso · preso

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "paso" and "perso" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈpaso] versus [ˈpeɾso]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "paso" or "perso" show up more?
"paso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #343 in our Spanish list, against #46,116 for "perso". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "paso" and "perso" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paso" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "perso" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #125,590 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paso" and "perso" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Perseo vs perso". 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 #125,590 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