Which to use
“place” and “play” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #178
- “place” frequency rank
- #4,969
- “play” frequency rank
- 5147
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | place | play |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu, endroit, espace qu’occupe ou que peut occuper une personne, une chose. | Pièce de théâtre, pièce. |
Where the eye mixes place and play
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: place vs play
A purely visual mix-up. place (\plas\) and play (\ˈpleɪ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5147, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
place is recorded at frequency rank #178, classified as anoun, pronounced \plas\. play is at rank #4,969, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈpleɪ\.
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 5147, this pair ranks #429,775 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of place vs play
Shared letters: alp. Private to "place": ce. Private to "play": y.
"place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "play" · 4 letters · shape CCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "place" and "play" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "place" or "play" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "place" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "play" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #429,775 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "place" and "play" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "play vs plays". 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
Confusion rank #429,775 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.