Which to use
“pate” and “patter” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #33,784
- “pate” frequency rank
- #38,547
- “patter” frequency rank
- 72331
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pate | patter |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The head, particularly the top or crown. | A soft repeated sound, as of rain falling, or feet walking on a hard surface. |
Where the eye mixes pate and patter
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pate runs 4 letters (CVCV) against patter's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: pate vs patter
A purely visual mix-up. pate (/peɪt/) and patter (/ˈpæt.ə/) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72331, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pate is recorded at frequency rank #33,784, classified as anoun, pronounced /peɪt/. patter is at rank #38,547, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpæt.ə/.
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 72331, this pair ranks #43,410 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of pate vs patter
Shared letters: aept. Private to "pate": -. Private to "patter": r.
"pate" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "patter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "pate" and "patter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "pate" vs "patter" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "pate" and "patter" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "pate" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "patter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #43,410 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pate" and "patter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "patter vs pester". 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 #43,410 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.