Which to use
“pique” is a verb and “plaque” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #31,706
- “pique” frequency rank
- #11,437
- “plaque” frequency rank
- 43143
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | pique | plaque |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To wound the pride of (someone); to excite to anger; to irritate, to offend. | Any flat, thin piece of clay, ivory, metal, etc., used for ornament, or for painting pictures upon, as a dish, plate, slab, etc., hung upon a wall; also, a smaller decoration worn by a person, such as a brooch. |
Where the eye mixes pique and plaque
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. pique runs 5 letters (CVCVV) against plaque's 6 (CCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses pique with plaque
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: pique is /piːk/ while plaque is /plæk/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43143, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
pique is recorded at frequency rank #31,706, classified as averb, pronounced /piːk/. plaque is at rank #11,437, tagged as anoun, pronounced /plæk/.
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 43143, this pair ranks #242,777 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of pique vs plaque
Shared letters: epqu. Private to "pique": i. Private to "plaque": al.
"pique" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "plaque" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "pique" and "plaque" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary English text, does "pique" or "plaque" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "pique" and "plaque" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "pique" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "plaque" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #242,777 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "pique" and "plaque" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pique vs piqued". 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 #242,777 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.