pacevsplateWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“pace” and “plate” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,773
“pace” frequency rank
#2,751
“plate” frequency rank
6524
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pace plate
Definition A step. A slightly curved but almost flat dish from which food is served or eaten.

Where the eye mixes pace and plate

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pace
5 ch
plate

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. pace (/peɪs/) and plate (/ˈpleɪ̯t/) 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 6524, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pace is recorded at frequency rank #3,773, classified as anoun, pronounced /peɪs/. plate is at rank #2,751, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpleɪ̯t/.

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 6524, this pair ranks #511,065 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pace vs plate

Shared letters: aep. Private to "pace": c. Private to "plate": lt.

"pace" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "plate" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paceapce · pacce · paec · pcae · ppace
  • platelpate · palte · plaet · pllate · pltae · pplate

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pace" and "plate" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/peɪs/ versus /ˈpleɪ̯t/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pace" or "plate"?
"plate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,751 in our English list, against #3,773 for "pace". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "pace" and "plate". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #511,065 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pace" and "plate" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pace vs pecs". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list