Which to use
“played” and “pleated” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #590
- “played” frequency rank
- #40,394
- “pleated” frequency rank
- 40984
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | played | pleated |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of play | simple past and past participle of pleat |
Where the eye mixes played and pleated
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: played vs pleated
A purely visual mix-up. played (/pleɪd/) and pleated (/ˈpliːtɪd/) 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 40984, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
played is recorded at frequency rank #590, classified as averb, pronounced /pleɪd/. pleated is at rank #40,394, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈpliːtɪd/.
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 40984, this pair ranks #262,613 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of played vs pleated
Shared letters: adelp. Private to "played": y. Private to "pleated": t.
"played" · 6 letters · shape CCVVVC · "pleated" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "played" and "pleated" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "played" or "pleated" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "played" and "pleated" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "played" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pleated" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #262,613 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "played" and "pleated" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pleaser vs pleated". 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 #262,613 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.