granvslungWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: gran is a adjective, lung is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#13,386
“gran” frequency rank
#36,488
“lung” frequency rank
49874
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gran lung
Definition groß, hochgewachsen die Lunge

Letter map: gran vs lung

Shared letters muted; letters that set gran and lung apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. gran (CCVC) and lung (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
gran
4 ch
lung

Part-of-speech tell for gran / lung

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gran is anadjective and lunganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49874, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gran is recorded at frequency rank #13,386, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. lung is at rank #36,488, 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 49874, this pair ranks #1,195,112 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gran vs lung

Shared letters: gn. Private to "gran": ar. Private to "lung": lu.

"gran" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "lung" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gran ← ggran · grann · grna · grran · rgan
  • lung ← llung · lnug · lugn · lungg · lunng · ulng

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gran" and "lung" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gran" is an adjective and "lung" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "gran" or "lung" show up more?
"gran" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,386 in our German list, against #36,488 for "lung". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "gran" vs "lung" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gran" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lung" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,195,112 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gran" and "lung" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lung 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 #1,195,112 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