pattedvsplatterTell them apart

Quick tell: patted is a verb, platter is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“patted” is a verb and “platter” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,148
“patted” frequency rank
#21,026
“platter” frequency rank
58174
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature patted platter
Definition simple past and past participle of pat A tray for serving foods.

Letter map: patted vs platter

Shared letters muted; letters that set patted and platter apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. patted runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against platter's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
patted
7 ch
platter

Part-of-speech tell for patted / platter

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: patted is averb and platteranoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58174, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

patted is recorded at frequency rank #37,148, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈpatɪd/. platter is at rank #21,026, 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 58174, this pair ranks #114,389 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of patted vs platter

Shared letters: aept. Private to "patted": d. Private to "platter": lr.

"patted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "platter" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • patted ← aptted · pated · patetd · pattde · pattedd · ppatted · ptated
  • platter ← lpatter · paltter · plater · platetr · platterr · plattre · pllatter · pltater

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "patted" for "platter" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "patted" is a verb and "platter" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "patted" vs "platter" - which ranks higher?
"platter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,026 in our English list, against #37,148 for "patted". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "patted" vs "platter" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "patted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "platter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #114,389 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "patted" and "platter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pared vs patted". 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 #114,389 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