PatnavspetraWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Patna is a name, petra is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Patna” is a name and “petra” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,453
“Patna” frequency rank
#20,457
“petra” frequency rank
55910
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Patna petra
Definition The capital and largest city of Bihar, India. stone, a weight equal to 14 pounds.

Letter map: Patna vs petra

Shared letters muted; letters that set Patna and petra apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Patna and petra follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Patna
5 ch
petra

Part-of-speech tell for Patna / petra

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Patna is aname and petraanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55910, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Patna is recorded at frequency rank #35,453, classified as aname. petra is at rank #20,457, tagged as anoun.

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 55910, this pair ranks #130,027 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Patna vs petra

Shared letters: apt. Private to "Patna": n. Private to "petra": er.

"Patna" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "petra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Patna ← aptna · panta · patan · patnna · pattna · ppatna · ptana
  • petra ← eptra · perta · petar · petrra · pettra · ppetra · ptera

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Patna" for "petra" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Patna" is a name and "petra" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Patna" or "petra"?
"petra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,457 in our English list, against #35,453 for "Patna". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Patna" and "petra".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Patna" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "petra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #130,027 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Patna" and "petra" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Patil vs Patna". 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 #130,027 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list