picturevspinturaConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#37,261
“picture” frequency rank
#2,413
“pintura” frequency rank
39674
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature picture pintura
Definition Pintura, cuadro, retrato. Arte que se ocupa de la técnica de pintar.

Where the eye mixes picture and pintura

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. picture and pintura follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
picture
7 ch
pintura

Look-alike desk: picture vs pintura

A purely visual mix-up. picture (/ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/) and pintura ([pĩn̪ˈt̪uɾa]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39674, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

picture is recorded at frequency rank #37,261, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/. pintura is at rank #2,413, tagged as anoun, pronounced [pĩn̪ˈt̪uɾa].

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 39674, this pair ranks #163,256 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of picture vs pintura

Shared letters: iprtu. Private to "picture": ce. Private to "pintura": an.

"picture" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "pintura" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picture ← ipcture · pciture · piccture · pictrue · pictture · pictuer · picturre · picutre
  • pintura ← ipntura · pinntura · pintrua · pinttura · pintuar · pinturra · pinutra · pitnura

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "picture" for "pintura" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpɪk.t͡ʃə/ versus [pĩn̪ˈt̪uɾa]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "picture" vs "pintura" - which ranks higher?
"pintura" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,413 in our Spanish list, against #37,261 for "picture". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "picture" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pintura" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #163,256 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "picture" and "pintura" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "picture vs pictures". 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 #163,256 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