parkvspatWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#717
“park” frequency rank
#4,785
“pat” frequency rank
5502
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature park pat
Definition An area of land set aside for environment preservation or recreation. The sound of a light slap or tap with a soft flat object, especially of a footstep.

Where the eye mixes park and pat

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
park
3 ch
pat

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. park (/pɑɹk/) and pat (/pæt/) 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 5502, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

park is recorded at frequency rank #717, classified as anoun, pronounced /pɑɹk/. pat is at rank #4,785, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pæt/.

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 5502, this pair ranks #515,084 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of park vs pat

Shared letters: ap. Private to "park": kr. Private to "pat": t.

"park" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "pat" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • parkaprk · pakr · parkk · parrk · ppark · prak

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "park" and "pat" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/pɑɹk/ versus /pæt/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "park" or "pat"?
"park" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #717 in our English list, against #4,785 for "pat". 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 "park" and "pat". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "park" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pat" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #515,084 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "park" and "pat" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pat vs PPA". 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