pilotovspiojoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,280
“piloto” frequency rank
#32,804
“piojo” frequency rank
36084
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature piloto piojo
Definition Conductor de un barco. (orden Phthiraptera) Cualquiera de más de 3000 especies de insectos ápteros adaptados para parasitar virtualmente todas las especies de mamíferos y aves, cuya sangre consumen, alojándose en el cabello del cuerpo y la cabeza. Su cuerpo está diseñado para este hábitat, con el primer par de patas modificado para permitir la sujeción al cabello. Son extremadamente fértiles, depositando las hembras hasta unos 200 huevos en los 30 días de su vida adulta. Tienen el cuerpo aplanado y de color oscuro o pardoamarillento. La infestación con piojos se denomina pediculosis, y provoca comezón, además de funcionar como vector para otras enfermedades —en particular el tifus— y provocar anemia en casos agudos.

Where the eye mixes piloto and piojo

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
piloto
5 ch
piojo

Visual trap between piloto and piojo

A purely visual mix-up. piloto ([piˈlot̪o]) and piojo ([ˈpjoxo]) 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 36084, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

piloto is recorded at frequency rank #3,280, classified as anoun, pronounced [piˈlot̪o]. piojo is at rank #32,804, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpjoxo].

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 36084, this pair ranks #182,559 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of piloto vs piojo

Shared letters: iop. Private to "piloto": lt. Private to "piojo": j.

"piloto" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "piojo" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pilotoiploto · pilloto · piloot · pilotto · piltoo · piolto · plioto · ppiloto
  • piojoipojo · pijoo · piojjo · piooj · poijo · ppiojo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "piloto" for "piojo" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([piˈlot̪o] versus [ˈpjoxo]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "piloto" vs "piojo" - which ranks higher?
"piloto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,280 in our Spanish list, against #32,804 for "piojo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "piloto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piojo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #182,559 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "piloto" and "piojo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piojo vs probo". 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 #182,559 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