gradesvskungTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#15,903
“grades” frequency rank
#22,408
“kung” frequency rank
38311
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grades kung
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs grade monarchisches Oberhaupt eines Königreichs; König

Letter map: grades vs kung

Shared letters muted; letters that set grades and kung apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. grades runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against kung's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
grades
4 ch
kung

Part-of-speech tell for grades / kung

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grades is averb and kunganoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38311, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grades is recorded at frequency rank #15,903, classified as averb, pronounced […]. kung is at rank #22,408, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 38311, this pair ranks #1,567,267 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of grades vs kung

Shared letters: g. Private to "grades": aders. Private to "kung": knu.

"grades" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "kung" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gradesgardes · ggrades · graddes · gradess · gradse · graeds · grdaes · grrades
  • kungkkung · knug · kugn · kungg · kunng · ukng

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "grades" and "kung" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grades" is a verb and "kung" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "grades" or "kung" show up more?
"grades" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,903 in our German list, against #22,408 for "kung". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "grades" vs "kung" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grades" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "kung" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,567,267 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grades" and "kung" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kung vs puzzles". 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 #1,567,267 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