grassvsgrauConfusable pair

Quick tell: grass is a noun, grau is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#15,648
“grass” frequency rank
#4,519
“grau” frequency rank
20167
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grass grau
Definition Gras, Rasen in einer Farbe, die eine Mischung aus schwarz und weiß ist, gehalten

Letter map: grass vs grau

Shared letters muted; letters that set grass and grau apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
grass
4 ch
grau

Part-of-speech tell for grass / grau

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grass is anoun and grauanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20167, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grass is recorded at frequency rank #15,648, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. grau is at rank #4,519, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ɡʁaʊ̯].

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 20167, this pair ranks #1,900,554 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of grass vs grau

Shared letters: agr. Private to "grass": s. Private to "grau": u.

"grass" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "grau" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grassgarss · ggrass · graß · grrass · grsas · rgass
  • graugaru · ggrau · grrau · grua · rgau

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "grass" and "grau" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grass" is a noun and "grau" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "grass" vs "grau" - which ranks higher?
"grau" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,519 in our German list, against #15,648 for "grass". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "grass" and "grau". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grau" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,900,554 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grass" and "grau" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grass 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 #1,900,554 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