pecadorvspegadoWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pecador is a adjective, pegado is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pecador” is an adjective and “pegado” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,593
“pecador” frequency rank
#8,160
“pegado” frequency rank
32753
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pecador pegado
Definition Que peca o ha cometido un pecado. Participio de pegar.

Where the eye mixes pecador and pegado

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
pecador
6 ch
pegado

Look-alike desk: pecador vs pegado

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pecador is [pekaˈð̞oɾ] while pegado is [peˈɣ̞að̞o]. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32753, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pecador is recorded at frequency rank #24,593, classified as anadj, pronounced [pekaˈð̞oɾ]. pegado is at rank #8,160, tagged as averb, pronounced [peˈɣ̞að̞o].

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 32753, this pair ranks #200,380 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pecador vs pegado

Shared letters: adeop. Private to "pecador": cr. Private to "pegado": g.

"pecador" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "pegado" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pecadorepcador · pceador · peacdor · pecaddor · pecadorr · pecadro · pecaodr · peccador
  • pegadoepgado · peagdo · pegaddo · pegaod · pegdao · peggado · pgeado · ppegado

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pecador" and "pegado" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pecador" is an adjective and "pegado" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "pecador" or "pegado" show up more?
"pegado" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,160 in our Spanish list, against #24,593 for "pecador". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pecador" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pegado" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #200,380 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pecador" and "pegado" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pecador vs picados". 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 #200,380 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