Which to use
“place” is a noun and “plain” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #178
- “place” frequency rank
- #17,230
- “plain” frequency rank
- 17408
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | place | plain |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu, endroit, espace qu’occupe ou que peut occuper une personne, une chose. | Qui est uni, plat, sans inégalités. |
Where the eye mixes place and plain
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: place is \plas\ while plain is \plɛ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17408, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
place is recorded at frequency rank #178, classified as anoun, pronounced \plas\. plain is at rank #17,230, tagged as anadj, pronounced \plɛ̃\.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 17408, this pair ranks #383,317 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of place vs plain
Shared letters: alp. Private to "place": ce. Private to "plain": in.
"place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "plain" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC