Which to use
“retar” is a verb and “rotas” is a participle - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,304
- “retar” frequency rank
- #13,344
- “rotas” frequency rank
- 50648
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | retar | rotas |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dicho de un noble: acusar ante el rey a otro noble de alevosía, quedando obligado el primero a mantener la denuncia en buena lid. | Forma del femenino plural de roto, participio de romper. |
Where the eye mixes retar and rotas
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses retar with rotas
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: retar is [reˈt̪aɾ] while rotas is [ˈrot̪as]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs participle), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
retar is recorded at frequency rank #37,304, classified as averb, pronounced [reˈt̪aɾ]. rotas is at rank #13,344, tagged as aparticiple, pronounced [ˈrot̪as].
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 50648, this pair ranks #102,071 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of retar vs rotas
Shared letters: art. Private to "retar": e. Private to "rotas": os.
"retar" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "rotas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "retar" and "rotas" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary Spanish text, does "retar" or "rotas" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "retar" and "rotas" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "retar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "rotas" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #102,071 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "retar" and "rotas" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "renard vs retar". 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 #102,071 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.