pillosvspilónWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: pillos is a adjective, pilón is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“pillos” is an adjective and “pilón” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,324
“pillos” frequency rank
#47,991
“pilón” frequency rank
95315
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pillos pilón
Definition Forma del plural de pillo₁. Receptáculo de piedra, que se construye en las fuentes para que, cayendo el agua en él, sirva de abrevadero, de lavadero o para otros usos.

Where the eye mixes pillos and pilón

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

6 ch
pillos
5 ch
pilón

Look-alike desk: pillos vs pilón

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pillos is [ˈpiʝos] while pilón is [piˈlõn]. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 95315, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pillos is recorded at frequency rank #47,324, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈpiʝos]. pilón is at rank #47,991, tagged as anoun, pronounced [piˈlõn].

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 95315, this pair ranks #590 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pillos vs pilón

Shared letters: ilp. Private to "pillos": os. Private to "pilón": .

"pillos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "pilón" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pillosipllos · pilloss · pillso · pilols · pilos · plilos · ppillos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pillos" for "pilón" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pillos" is an adjective and "pilón" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "pillos" or "pilón"?
"pillos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #47,324 in our Spanish list, against #47,991 for "pilón". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

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