placevsplayaWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“place” and “playa” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,501
“place” frequency rank
#44,138
“playa” frequency rank
55639
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature place playa
Definition Platz, Ort, Stelle in ein Gewässer hineinragender, langgestreckter, flacher, sandiger oder kiesiger Streifen Land, besonders der bespülte Saum des Meeres

Letter map: place vs playa

Shared letters muted; letters that set place and playa apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
place
5 ch
playa

Spelling & dictionary notes on place vs playa

place and playa are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55639, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

place is recorded at frequency rank #11,501, classified as anoun, pronounced [pleɪs]. playa is at rank #44,138, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 55639, this pair ranks #971,746 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of place vs playa

Shared letters: alp. Private to "place": ce. Private to "playa": y.

"place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "playa" · 5 letters · shape CCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • placelpace · palce · placce · plaec · plcae · pllace · pplace
  • playalpaya · palya · plaay · playya · pllaya · plyaa · pplaya

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "place" and "playa" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "place" vs "playa" - which ranks higher?
"place" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,501 in our German list, against #44,138 for "playa". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "place" vs "playa" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "place" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "playa" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #971,746 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "place" and "playa" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "playa vs puzzles". 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 #971,746 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list