Which to use
“plan” and “pylon” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #516
- “plan” frequency rank
- #43,325
- “pylon” frequency rank
- 43841
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | plan | pylon |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | A gateway to the inner part of an Ancient Egyptian temple. |
Where the eye mixes plan and pylon
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses plan with pylon
A purely visual mix-up. plan (/plæn/) and pylon (/ˈpaɪ.lɒn/) 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 43841, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
plan is recorded at frequency rank #516, classified as anoun, pronounced /plæn/. pylon is at rank #43,325, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈpaɪ.lɒn/.
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 43841, this pair ranks #236,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of plan vs pylon
Shared letters: lnp. Private to "plan": a. Private to "pylon": oy.
"plan" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "pylon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "plan" for "pylon" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "plan" or "pylon" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "plan" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pylon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #236,190 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "plan" and "pylon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Palos vs pylon". 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 #236,190 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.