placate vs place, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#38,555
“placate” frequency rank: #187
“place” frequency rank: 38742
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	placate	place
Definition	To calm; to bring peace to; to influence someone who was furious to the point that they become content or at least no longer irate.	An area; somewhere within an area.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set placate and place apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch

placate

5 ch

place

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: placate is /pləˈkeɪt/ while place is /pleɪs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 38742, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

placate is recorded at frequency rank #38,555, classified as averb, pronounced /pləˈkeɪt/. place is at rank #187, tagged as anoun, pronounced /pleɪs/.

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 38742, this pair ranks #283,174 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of placate vs place

Shared letters: acelp. Private to "placate": t. Private to "place": -.

"placate" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV · "place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

placate ← lpacate · palcate · plaacte · placaet · placatte · placcate · plactae · plcaate
place ← lpace · palce · placce · plaec · plcae · pllace · pplace

Frequency comparison

placate#38,555

place#187

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "placate" and "place" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "placate" is a verb and "place" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "placate" or "place"?

"place" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #187 in our English list, against #38,555 for "placate". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering placate vs place

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “placate”; for a noun, it's “place”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “placate” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable