Which to use
“place” and “plume” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #178
- “place” frequency rank
- #5,381
- “plume” frequency rank
- 5559
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | place | plume |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu, endroit, espace qu’occupe ou que peut occuper une personne, une chose. | Phanère corné, garni de barbes et de duvet, qui couvre le corps des oiseaux. |
Where the eye mixes place and plume
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: place vs plume
A purely visual mix-up. place (\plas\) and plume (\plym\) 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 5559, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
place is recorded at frequency rank #178, classified as anoun, pronounced \plas\. plume is at rank #5,381, tagged as anoun, pronounced \plym\.
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 5559, this pair ranks #428,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of place vs plume
Shared letters: elp. Private to "place": ac. Private to "plume": mu.
"place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "plume" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "place" and "plume" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "place" or "plume" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "place" and "plume" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "place" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "plume" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #428,677 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "place" and "plume" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plume vs prude". 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 #428,677 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.