precisovspremioTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#5,246
“preciso” frequency rank
#974
“premio” frequency rank
6220
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature preciso premio
Definition Necesario, indispensable. Retribución honorífica que se concede a uno por sus méritos

Where the eye mixes preciso and premio

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
preciso
6 ch
premio

Visual trap between preciso and premio

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: preciso is [pɾeˈsiso] while premio is [ˈpɾemjo]. 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 6220, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

preciso is recorded at frequency rank #5,246, classified as anadj, pronounced [pɾeˈsiso]. premio is at rank #974, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpɾemjo].

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 6220, this pair ranks #311,422 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of preciso vs premio

Shared letters: eiopr. Private to "preciso": cs. Private to "premio": m.

"preciso" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV  ·  "premio" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • precisoperciso · ppreciso · prceiso · precciso · precisso · precsio · preicso · presiso
  • premiopermio · ppremio · preimo · premmio · premoi · prmeio · prremio · rpemio

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "preciso" for "premio" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "preciso" is an adjective and "premio" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "preciso" or "premio" show up more?
"premio" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #974 in our Spanish list, against #5,246 for "preciso". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "preciso" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "premio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #311,422 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "preciso" and "premio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "precisado vs preciso". 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 #311,422 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