GleisevsgreifeTell them apart

Quick tell: Gleise is a noun, greife is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Gleise” is a noun and “greife” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,850
“Gleise” frequency rank
#18,911
“greife” frequency rank
32761
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Gleise greife
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Gleis 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs greifen

Where the eye mixes Gleise and greife

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Gleise and greife follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
Gleise
6 ch
greife

Why the eye confuses Gleise with greife

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Gleise is [ˈɡlaɪ̯zə] while greife is [ˈɡʁaɪ̯fə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32761, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Gleise is recorded at frequency rank #13,850, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈɡlaɪ̯zə]. greife is at rank #18,911, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈɡʁaɪ̯fə].

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 32761, this pair ranks #1,700,558 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Gleise vs greife

Shared letters: egi. Private to "Gleise": ls. Private to "greife": fr.

"Gleise" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "greife" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Gleise ← gelise · ggleise · gleies · gleisse · glesie · gliese · glleise · lgeise
  • greife ← gerife · ggreife · grefie · greief · greiffe · griefe · grreife · rgeife

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Gleise" for "greife" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Gleise" is a noun and "greife" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Gleise" or "greife"?
"Gleise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,850 in our German list, against #18,911 for "greife". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Gleise" and "greife" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Gleise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "greife" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,700,558 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Gleise" and "greife" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "geis vs Gleise". 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 #1,700,558 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list