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plane

/pleɪn/adjective, noun, verb

plane is spelled P-L-A-N-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 52 times per million words in written English, the 1,941st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “plain vs plane” about 3,600 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, plane means “Of a surface: flat or level” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in plane?

Letters5: P-L-A-N-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing52 times per million words; the 1,941st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; 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 common is plane?

Plane appears 52 times per million words in written English, the 1,941st 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 plane?

  • /pleɪn/

Plane has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-a_plane.ogg, En-us-plane.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with plane

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

plain vs plane3,600 G

Sounds like: plain (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Also written: plain.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with plane?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as plane.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: panel, penal, plena, palen.

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 plane

  • planer comparative
  • planest superlative
  • planes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • planing participle, present
  • planed participle, past
  • 'planes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • 'planing participle, present
  • 'planed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does plane mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Of a surface: flat or level.

noun

  1. 1

    A level or flat surface.

  2. 2

    A flat surface extending infinitely in all directions (e.g. horizontal or vertical plane); a bounded portion thereof.

  3. 3

    An imaginary plane which divides the body into two portions.

  4. 4

    A level of existence or development.

    astral plane

  5. 5

    A roughly flat, thin, often moveable structure used to create lateral force by the flow of air or water over its surface, found on aircraft, submarines, etc.

  6. 6

    Any of 17 designated ranges of 2¹⁶ (65,536) sequential code points each.

  7. 7

    A tool for smoothing wood by removing thin layers from the surface.

  8. 8

    An airplane; an aeroplane.

    on a plane

  9. 9

    Any of various nymphalid butterflies, of various genera, having a slow gliding flight.

  10. 10

    The butterfly Bindahara phocides, family Lycaenidae, of Asia and Australasia.

  11. 11

    A deciduous tree of the genus Platanus.

  12. 12

    A sycamore.

verb

  1. 1

    To smooth (wood) with a plane.

  2. 2

    To move in a way that lifts the bow out of the water.

  3. 3

    To glide or soar.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Plane in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchplan, plat (of a surface: flat or level), rabot (a tool), raboter (to smooth with a plane), avion, aéroplane (airplane)
Germaneben (of a surface: flat or level), Hobel (a tool), hobeln (to smooth with a plane), Flugzeug, Flieger (airplane), Ebene (geometry: flat surface extending infinitely in…)
Portugueseplano (of a surface: flat or level), plaina (a tool), aplainar (to smooth with a plane), avião, aeroplano (airplane), plainar (to glide)
Spanishplano (of a surface: flat or level), cepillo (a tool), cepillar, dolar (to smooth with a plane), avión (airplane), planear (to move in a way that lifts the bow of a boat…)

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 plane come from?

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, plain, and plan.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after plane