patiovspidióTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#3,277
“patio” frequency rank
#1,874
“pidió” frequency rank
5151
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature patio pidió
Definition Espacio cerrado con paredes o galerías, que en las casas y otros edificios se deja al descubierto. Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del pretérito perfecto simple de indicativo de pedir.

Where the eye mixes patio and pidió

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
patio
5 ch
pidió

Visual trap between patio and pidió

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: patio is [ˈpat̪jo] while pidió is [piˈð̞jo]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5151, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

patio is recorded at frequency rank #3,277, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈpat̪jo]. pidió is at rank #1,874, tagged as averb, pronounced [piˈð̞jo].

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 5151, this pair ranks #314,367 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of patio vs pidió

Shared letters: ip. Private to "patio": aot. Private to "pidió": .

"patio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "pidió" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • patioaptio · paito · patoi · pattio · ppatio · ptaio

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "patio" for "pidió" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "patio" is a noun and "pidió" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "patio" vs "pidió" - which ranks higher?
"pidió" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,874 in our Spanish list, against #3,277 for "patio". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "patio" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pidió" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #314,367 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "patio" and "pidió" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pateo vs patio". 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 #314,367 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