Planar or planer?
planar is an adjective meaning “Of or pertaining to a plane”; planer is a noun meaning “A tool which smooths a surface or makes one surface of a workpiece parallel to…”. Use planar as an adjective and planer as a noun. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) planar is about 5.1 times as common as planer.
What is the difference between planar and planer?
| planar | planer | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | noun, adjective |
| Meaning | Of or pertaining to a plane Flat, two-dimensional | A tool which smooths a surface or makes one surface of a workpiece parallel to the tool's bed A person employed to use this kind of woodworking tool |
| Example | A planar projection of a three-dimensional object is its projection onto a plane | none recorded |
| Forms | none | planers |
| Pronunciation | /ˈpleɪnɚ/ /ˈpleɪnə/ | /ˈpleɪ̯n.əɹ/ /ˈpɫeɪ̯n.ɚ/ /ˈpleɪ̯n.ə/ |
| In writing | 1.2 times per million words | about once in every 4 million words |
Sources: planar and planer in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of planar and planer
planar
- 1
Of or pertaining to a plane
A planar projection of a three-dimensional object is its projection onto a plane
- 2
Flat, two-dimensional
- 3
Able to be embedded in the plane with no edges intersecting
A complete graph with more than four nodes is never planar
- 4
Having a flat profile, not etched into a mesa
planer
- 1
A tool which smooths a surface or makes one surface of a workpiece parallel to the tool's bed
- 2
A person employed to use this kind of woodworking tool
- 3
A large machine tool in which the workpiece is traversed linearly (by means of a reciprocating bed) beneath a single-point cutting tool. (Analogous to a shaper but larger and with the workpiece…
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, planar or planer?
planar appears 1.2 times per million words; planer about once in every 4 million words.
planar 1.2 times per million wordsplaner about once in every 4 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).