Which to use
“place” and “police” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #178
- “place” frequency rank
- #469
- “police” frequency rank
- 647
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | place | police |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu, endroit, espace qu’occupe ou que peut occuper une personne, une chose. | Ordre, règlement établi dans un État, dans une ville, pour tout ce qui regarde la sûreté, la tranquillité et la commodité des citoyens, des habitants. |
Where the eye mixes place and police
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between place and police
A purely visual mix-up. place (\plas\) and police (\pɔ.lis\) 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 647, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
place is recorded at frequency rank #178, classified as anoun, pronounced \plas\. police is at rank #469, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɔ.lis\.
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 647, this pair ranks #439,340 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of place vs police
Shared letters: celp. Private to "place": a. Private to "police": io.
"place" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "police" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "place" and "police" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "place" or "police"?
Useful next steps
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 "police" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #439,340 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "place" and "police" 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
Confusion rank #439,340 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.