pintosvspuñosTell them apart

Which to use

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

#39,922
“pintos” frequency rank
#13,325
“puños” frequency rank
53247
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pintos puños
Definition Forma del plural de pinto. Forma del plural de puño.

Where the eye mixes pintos and puños

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. pintos runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against puños's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
pintos
5 ch
puños

Look-alike desk: pintos vs puños

A purely visual mix-up. pintos ([ˈpĩn̪t̪os]) and puños ([ˈpuɲos]) 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 53247, 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]. puños is at rank #13,325, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpuɲos].

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 53247, this pair ranks #88,810 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pintos vs puños

Shared letters: ops. Private to "pintos": int. Private to "puños": uñ.

"pintos" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "puños" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pintos ← ipntos · pinntos · pinots · pintoss · pintso · pinttos · pitnos · pnitos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pintos" for "puños" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈpĩn̪t̪os] versus [ˈpuɲos]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "pintos" vs "puños" - which ranks higher?
"puños" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,325 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.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pintos" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puños" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #88,810 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pintos" and "puños" 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 #88,810 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