plaque
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "plaque", 6-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 "plaque" 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 "plaque" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
plaque is aEnglishnoun. It means: Any flat, thin piece of clay, ivory, metal, etc., used for ornament, or for painting pictures upon, as a dish, plate, slab, etc., hung upon a wall; also, a smaller decoration worn by a person, such... Pronounced /plæk/. Often confused with plate and Prague.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | plaque |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /plæk/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #11,437 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for plaque is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /plæk/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,437 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for plaque, with forms such as "lpaque", "palque", and "plaqeu". 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 8 confusable-pair relationships, "plate", "Prague", "Platte", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Unadapted borrowing from French plaque (“plate, sheet (of metal); slab (of marble); bacteria on teeth”), from French plaquer, Middle French plaquer (“to plate”), from Middle Dutch placken (“to patch, beat metal into a thin plate”), from placke (“disk, patch… 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 plaque, spelled P-L-A-Q-U-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Any flat, thin piece of clay, ivory, metal, etc., used for ornament, or for painting pictures upon, as a dish, plate, slab, etc., hung upon a wall; also, a smaller decoration worn by a person, such as a brooch.
- 2A piece of flat metal with writing on it, attached to a building, monument, or other structure to remind people of a person or an event.
- 3A small card representing an amount of money, used for betting in casinos; a sort of gaming chip.
- 4A clearing in a bacterial lawn caused by a virus.
- 5In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system: any flat, thin musical instrument.
- 6A broad patch of abnormal tissue distinguishable from surrounding tissue, especially a broad papule (“inflamed, irritated patch”) on the skin.
- 7An abnormal accumulation of material in or on an organ of the body, often associated with disease.
- 8An abnormal accumulation of material in or on an organ of the body, often associated with disease.
- 9An abnormal accumulation of material in or on an organ of the body, often associated with disease.
- 10An abnormal accumulation of material in or on an organ of the body, often associated with disease.
Etymology
Unadapted borrowing from French plaque (“plate, sheet (of metal); slab (of marble); bacteria on teeth”), from French plaquer, Middle French plaquer (“to plate”), from Middle Dutch placken (“to patch, beat metal into a thin plate”), from placke (“disk, patch, stain”), from Old Dutch *plagga (“patch”), from Proto-Germanic *plaggą (“patch”). The word is cognate with Middle Low German placke, plagge (“small stain, scraps, rags, thin grass”), German Placken (“spot, patch”), Saterland Frisian plak, plakke (“a blow, slap”), Swedish plagg (“clothing, garment”). Compare plack.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lpaque,palque,plaqeu,plaqque,plauqe,pllaque,plqaue,pplaque
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for plaque
Misspelling Variants of "plaque"
Frequency rank: #11,437 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: