pasovspiscoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#343
“paso” frequency rank
#20,765
“pisco” frequency rank
21108
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paso pisco
Definition Cada uno de los movimientos de avance de las piernas al caminar. Bebida alcohólica de fuerte graduación, hecha a partir de la destilación de mostos de uva. Su fabricacion se inició en el Virreinato del Peru en Ica y La Serena. El Perú y Chile debaten sobre su origen.

Where the eye mixes paso and pisco

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

4 ch
paso
5 ch
pisco

Why the eye confuses paso with pisco

A purely visual mix-up. paso ([ˈpaso]) and pisco ([ˈpisko]) 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 21108, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paso is recorded at frequency rank #343, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈpaso]. pisco is at rank #20,765, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpisko].

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 21108, this pair ranks #256,379 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of paso vs pisco

Shared letters: ops. Private to "paso": a. Private to "pisco": ci.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pasoapso · paos · passo · ppaso · psao
  • piscoipsco · piscco · pisoc · pissco · ppisco · psico

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paso" and "pisco" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([ˈpaso] versus [ˈpisko]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "paso" or "pisco" show up more?
"paso" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #343 in our Spanish list, against #20,765 for "pisco". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "paso" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pisco" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #256,379 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paso" and "pisco" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pisco vs pitch". 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 #256,379 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