place
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "place", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "place" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "place" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
place is aEnglishnoun. It means: An area; somewhere within an area. Pronounced /pleɪs/. It ranks #187 in English word frequency. Often confused with PLC and play.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | place |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pleɪs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #187 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for place is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pleɪs/. Corpus data places it at rank #187 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 23 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for place, with forms such as "lpace", "palce", and "placce". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PLC", "play", "plan", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English place, conflation of Old English plæċe (“place, an open space, street”) and Old French place (“place, an open space”), both from Latin platēa (“plaza, wide street”), from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa), shortening of πλατεῖα ὁδός (plate… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is place, spelled P-L-A-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An area; somewhere within an area.
- 2An area; somewhere within an area.
- 3An area; somewhere within an area.
- 4An area; somewhere within an area.
- 5An area; somewhere within an area.
- 6An area; somewhere within an area.
- 7An area; somewhere within an area.
- 8An area; somewhere within an area.
- 9An area; somewhere within an area.
- 10A location or position in space.
- 11A particular location in a book or document, particularly the current location of a reader
- 12A passage or extract from a book or document.
- 13A topic.
- 14A state of mind.
- 15A chess position; a square of the chessboard.
- 16A responsibility or position in an organization.
- 17A responsibility or position in an organization.
- 18A responsibility or position in an organization.
- 19A responsibility or position in an organization.
- 20A fortified position: a fortress, citadel, or walled town.
- 21Numerically, the column counting a certain quantity.
- 22Ordinal relation; position in the order of proceeding.
- 23Reception; effect; implying the making room for.
Etymology
From Middle English place, conflation of Old English plæċe (“place, an open space, street”) and Old French place (“place, an open space”), both from Latin platēa (“plaza, wide street”), from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa), shortening of πλατεῖα ὁδός (plateîa hodós, “broad way”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“to spread”), extended form of *pleh₂- (“flat”). Displaced native Old English stōw, stede (partially), and -ern. Compare also English pleck (“plot of ground”), West Frisian plak (“place, spot, location”), Dutch plek (“place, spot, patch”). Doublet of piatza, piazza, and plaza. In the etymological chain from Latin platēa, note Old French place, which has multiple descendants — including German Platz, itself with many descendants (e.g., Russian плац (plac)). Also note a more distant chain node Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús), whence English Plato and English plate (via Latin).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lpace,palce,placce,plaec,plcae,pllace,pplace
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for place
Misspelling Variants of "place"
Frequency rank: #187 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: