What are the differences between pastilla and tableta?

Question

Are they the same?

No estoy seguro si haya una diferencia entre los dos. Yo uso ambos palabras para indicar "tablet" pero espere para un mejor explication. - Xocoyote, Feb 27, 2012

Answer 1

pastilla - pill. tableta - tablet

Hi Hecho - what is the difference between "pill" and "tablet" :) - ian-hill, Feb 27, 2012

Some pills are "capsules" which are different than tablets (like most aspirin". - mtmonadnock, Feb 27, 2012

Answer 2

Hi, zh,

There is virtually no difference. Pastilla and tableta (if you are speaking of medicine) can be used interchangeably. However, in general (not always) people think of pills as being round (such as describing aspirin as a pill) and tablets as being lozenge shaped or more oval. However, there is now such a thing as "aspirin tablets", so which word you use is more a matter of preference, or how they refer to it on the packaging.

If you are interested in trivia, the word pastilla came first, year 1375, and the word tableta was developed in 1580.