place
/ˈpleɪ̯s/noun, verb
place is spelled P-L-A-C-E. The wrong spelling people search most is palce: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 61 of all searches for the word. Place is a noun meaning “An open space, particularly a city square, market square, or courtyard”. The plural of place is places.
How many letters and syllables are in place?
| Letters | 5: P-L-A-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 513 times per million words; the 188th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, palce, about 70 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell place?
Place is spelled P-L-A-C-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 61 of the searches for place in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is place?
Place appears 513 times per million words in written English, the 188th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce place?
- US /ˈpleɪ̯s/
- US [ˈpʰl̥eɪ̯s]
- /ˈpleːs/
Place has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-to_place.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-place.wav, En-us-place.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with place?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as place from its last stressed vowel (/eɪs/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: capel, caple.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of place
- places plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- pleace
- placing participle, present
- placed participle, past, singular, he/she/it, plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does place mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An open space, particularly a city square, market square, or courtyard.
- 2
A street, sometimes but not always surrounding a public place, square, or plaza of the same name.
They live at Westminster Place.
- 3
An inhabited area: a village, town, or city.
- 4
Any area of the earth: a region.
He is going back to his native place on vacation.
- 5
The area one occupies, particularly somewhere to sit.
We asked the restaurant to give us a table with three places.
- 6
The area where one lives: one's home, formerly (chiefly) country estates and farms.
Do you want to come over to my place later?
- 7
An area of the body, especially the skin.
Which place hurts the most?
- 8
slangAn area to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory.
verb
- 1
To put (someone or something) in a specific location.
He placed the glass on the table.
- 2
To earn a given spot in a competition; to rank at a certain position ((often followed by an ordinal)).
The Cowboys placed third in the league.
- 3
To finish second, especially of horses or dogs.
In the third race: Aces Up won, paying eight dollars; Blarney Stone placed, paying three dollars; and Cinnamon showed, paying five dollars.
- 4
To remember where and when (an object or person) has been previously encountered.
I've seen him before, but I can't quite place where.
- 5
To vouch for someone's alibi.
The librarian was placed at home by her neighbor at the time of the murder.
- 6
To sing (a note) with the correct pitch.
- 7
To make.
to place a call
- 8
To bet.
I placed ten dollars on the Lakers beating the Bulls.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate place?
Wiktionary records 4 abbreviations of place: PVM, Pl., VPM, pl.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Place in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | lieu, endroit, place , mettre, poser, placer |
| German | Platz, Ort, Stelle, Position , stellen, platzieren |
| Portuguese | lugar, local , colocar , praça , terra , assento |
| Spanish | lugar, sitio, locus, logar , plaza , asiento |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does place come from?
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, platz, and plaza.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).