placate
/pləˈkeɪt/
"placate" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“placate” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #38,555 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #38,555
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To calm; to bring peace to; to influence someone who was furious to the point that they become content or at least no longer irate.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | placate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /pləˈkeɪt/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #38,555 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “placate” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for placate is 7 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pləˈkeɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #38,555 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "To calm; to bring peace to; to influence someone who was furious to the point that they become content or at least no longer irate.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for placate, with forms such as "lpacate", "palcate", and "plaacte". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 6 confusable-pair relationships, "place", "plate", "Platte", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: First attested in the late 17ᵗʰ century; borrowed from Latin plācātus, perfect passive participle of plācō (“appease, placate”, literally “smooth, smoothen”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix) for more), ultimately thought t… The correct English form is placate, spelled P-L-A-C-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1To calm; to bring peace to; to influence someone who was furious to the point that they become content or at least no longer irate.
Etymology
First attested in the late 17ᵗʰ century; borrowed from Latin plācātus, perfect passive participle of plācō (“appease, placate”, literally “smooth, smoothen”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix) for more), ultimately thought to be from Proto-Indo-European *plāk- (“smooth, flat”), from *pele- (“broad, flat, plain”). Related to Latin placeō (“appease”), Old English flōh (“flat stone, chip”). More at please.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lpacate,palcate,plaacte,placaet,placatte,placcate,plactae,plcaate,pllacate,pplacate
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of placate - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “placate”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-L-A-C-A-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pləˈkeɪt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “place” - see the side-by-side comparison. placate vs place
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.