pintosvspiojosTell them apart

Which to use

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

#39,922
“pintos” frequency rank
#20,764
“piojos” frequency rank
60686
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pintos piojos
Definition Forma del plural de pinto. Forma del plural de piojo.

Where the eye mixes pintos and piojos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pintos (CVCCVC) and piojos (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
pintos
6 ch
piojos

Look-alike desk: pintos vs piojos

A purely visual mix-up. pintos ([ˈpĩn̪t̪os]) and piojos ([ˈpjoxos]) 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 60686, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pintos is recorded at frequency rank #39,922, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈpĩn̪t̪os]. piojos is at rank #20,764, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpjoxos].

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 60686, this pair ranks #58,092 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pintos vs piojos

Shared letters: iops. Private to "pintos": nt. Private to "piojos": j.

"pintos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "piojos" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pintos ← ipntos · pinntos · pinots · pintoss · pintso · pinttos · pitnos · pnitos
  • piojos ← ipojos · pijoos · piojjos · piojoss · piojso · pioojs · poijos · ppiojos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pintos" and "piojos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈpĩn̪t̪os] versus [ˈpjoxos]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pintos" or "piojos"?
"piojos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,764 in our Spanish list, against #39,922 for "pintos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "pintos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piojos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58,092 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pintos" and "piojos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pintos vs prontos". 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 #58,092 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