Which to use
“plan” is a noun and “plans” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #516
- “plan” frequency rank
- #1,055
- “plans” frequency rank
- 1571
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | plan | plans |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A drawing showing technical details of a building, machine, etc., with unwanted details omitted, and often using symbols rather than detailed drawing to represent doors, valves, etc. | third-person singular simple present indicative of plan |
Where the eye mixes plan and plans
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: plan is /plæn/ while plans is /plænz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “plan” sits inside “plans”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1571, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
plan is recorded at frequency rank #516, classified as anoun, pronounced /plæn/. plans is at rank #1,055, tagged as averb, pronounced /plænz/.
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 1571, this pair ranks #527,148 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of plan vs plans
Shared letters: alnp. Private to "plan": -. Private to "plans": s.
"plan" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "plans" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC