packvsplaceWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,224
“pack” frequency rank
#187
“place” frequency rank
2411
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pack place
Definition A bundle made up and prepared to be carried; especially, a bundle to be carried on the back, but also a load for an animal, a bale. An area; somewhere within an area.

Where the eye mixes pack and place

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

4 ch
pack
5 ch
place

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. pack (/pæk/) and place (/pleɪs/) 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 2411, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pack is recorded at frequency rank #2,224, classified as anoun, pronounced /pæk/. place is at rank #187, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pleɪs/.

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 2411, this pair ranks #525,039 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pack vs place

Shared letters: acp. Private to "pack": k. Private to "place": el.

"pack" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • packapck · pacck · packk · pakc · pcak · ppack
  • placelpace · palce · placce · plaec · plcae · pllace · pplace

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pack" and "place" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/pæk/ versus /pleɪs/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "pack" or "place"?
"place" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #187 in our English list, against #2,224 for "pack". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list