plane
/pleɪn/
"plane" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“plane” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,958 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #1,958
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Of a surface: flat or level.
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 | plane |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /pleɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,958 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “plane” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for plane is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pleɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,958 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Of a surface: flat or level.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for plane, with forms such as "lpane", "palne", and "plaen". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "play", "Pune", "plat", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂-? Proto-Indo-European *pel-? Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂-der. Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂-no-s Proto-Italic *plānos Latin plānus Latin plānumder. English plane From Latin plānum (“flat surface”), a noun use of the ne… The correct English form is plane, spelled P-L-A-N-E.
Definition
- 1Of a surface: flat or level.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂-? Proto-Indo-European *pel-? Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂-der. Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂-no-s Proto-Italic *plānos Latin plānus Latin plānumder. English plane From Latin plānum (“flat surface”), a noun use of the neuter of plānus (“plain”). The word was introduced in the 17th century to distinguish the geometrical senses from the other senses of plain. Doublet of llano, piano, and plain.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lpane,palne,plaen,planne,pllane,plnae,pplane
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of plane - 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 “plane”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-L-A-N-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /pleɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “play” - see the side-by-side comparison. plane vs play
- 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.