plano vs play, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“plano” is an adjective and “play” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#571
“plano” frequency rank: #3,929
“play” frequency rank: 4500
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	plano	play
Definition	liso, sem maiores desníveis, nivelado	botão que aciona a reprodução de mídia

Letter map: plano vs play

Shared letters muted; letters that set plano and play apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

plano

4 ch

play

Role in the sentence - plano and play

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: plano is anadjective and playanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4500, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

plano is recorded at frequency rank #571, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈplɐ.nu/. play is at rank #3,929, tagged as anoun.

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 4500, this pair ranks #70,373 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of plano vs play

Shared letters: alp. Private to "plano": no. Private to "play": y.

"plano" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "play" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

plano ← lpano · palno · planno · plaon · pllano · plnao · pplano
play ← lpay · paly · playy · pllay · plya · pplay

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "plano" and "play" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "plano" is an adjective and "play" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "plano" or "play"?

"plano" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #571 in our Portuguese list, against #3,929 for "play". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "plano" and "play". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "plano" 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 #70,373 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"plano" and "play" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pilão vs play". 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 #70,373 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.