plaque
/plæk/
"plaque" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“plaque” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,437 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #11,437
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 8
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - 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...
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 | 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) |
Where “plaque” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for plaque is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for plaque, with forms such as "lpaque", "palque", and "plaqeu". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 8 confusable-pair relationships, "plate", "Prague", "Platte", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
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… The correct English form is plaque, spelled P-L-A-Q-U-E.
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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of plaque - 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 “plaque”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-L-A-Q-U-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /plæk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “plate” - see the side-by-side comparison. plaque vs plate
- 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.