placedvsplantedWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#1,491
“placed” frequency rank
#6,724
“planted” frequency rank
8215
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature placed planted
Definition simple past and past participle of place simple past and past participle of plant

Where the eye mixes placed and planted

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
placed
7 ch
planted

Visual trap between placed and planted

A purely visual mix-up. placed (/pleɪst/) and planted (/ˈplɑːntɪd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8215, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

placed is recorded at frequency rank #1,491, classified as averb, pronounced /pleɪst/. planted is at rank #6,724, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈplɑːntɪd/.

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 8215, this pair ranks #503,610 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of placed vs planted

Shared letters: adelp. Private to "placed": c. Private to "planted": nt.

"placed" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "planted" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • placedlpaced · palced · placced · placde · placedd · plaecd · plcaed · pllaced
  • plantedlpanted · palnted · planetd · plannted · plantde · plantedd · plantted · platned

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "placed" and "planted" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/pleɪst/ versus /ˈplɑːntɪd/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "placed" or "planted"?
"placed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,491 in our English list, against #6,724 for "planted". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "placed" and "planted" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "placed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "planted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #503,610 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "placed" and "planted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plantar vs planted". 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 #503,610 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