payedvsplatedWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,911
“payed” frequency rank
#16,092
“plated” frequency rank
47003
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature payed plated
Definition Obsolete spelling of paid. simple past and past participle of plate

Letter map: payed vs plated

Shared letters muted; letters that set payed and plated apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. payed runs 5 letters (CVVVC) against plated's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
payed
6 ch
plated

Pair insight - payed / plated

payed and plated are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47003, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

payed is recorded at frequency rank #30,911, classified as averb. plated is at rank #16,092, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈpleɪtɪd/.

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 47003, this pair ranks #206,484 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of payed vs plated

Shared letters: adep. Private to "payed": y. Private to "plated": lt.

"payed" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "plated" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • payed ← apyed · paeyd · payde · payedd · payyed · ppayed · pyaed
  • plated ← lpated · palted · plaetd · platde · platedd · platted · pllated · pltaed

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "payed" and "plated" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "payed" vs "plated" - which ranks higher?
"plated" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,092 in our English list, against #30,911 for "payed". 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 "payed" and "plated".

  • Full dictionary entry for "payed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plated" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #206,484 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "payed" and "plated" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "payed vs plied". 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 #206,484 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