placevsplaitWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“place” and “plait” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#178
“place” frequency rank
#2,845
“plait” frequency rank
3023
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature place plait
Definition Lieu, endroit, espace qu’occupe ou que peut occuper une personne, une chose. Droit seigneurial de mutation.

Where the eye mixes place and plait

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
place
5 ch
plait

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. place (\plas\) and plait (\plɛ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3023, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

place is recorded at frequency rank #178, classified as anoun, pronounced \plas\. plait is at rank #2,845, tagged as anoun, pronounced \plɛ\.

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 3023, this pair ranks #434,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of place vs plait

Shared letters: alp. Private to "place": ce. Private to "plait": it.

"place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "plait" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • placelpace · palce · placce · plaec · plcae · pllace · pplace
  • plaitlpait · palit · plaitt · plati · pliat · pllait · pplait

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "place" and "plait" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\plas\ versus \plɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "place" or "plait"?
"place" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #178 in our French list, against #2,845 for "plait". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "place" and "plait". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "place" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #434,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "place" and "plait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "palaces vs place". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list