grassvsgriesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#15,648
“grass” frequency rank
#47,460
“gries” frequency rank
63108
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grass gries
Definition Gras, Rasen grau, grauhaarig oder trübe beim Wetter

Letter map: grass vs gries

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

5 ch
grass
5 ch
gries

Role in the sentence - grass and gries

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grass is anoun and griesanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63108, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grass is recorded at frequency rank #15,648, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. gries is at rank #47,460, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ɡʁiːs].

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 63108, this pair ranks #688,511 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of grass vs gries

Shared letters: grs. Private to "grass": a. Private to "gries": ei.

"grass" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "gries" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grassgarss · ggrass · graß · grrass · grsas · rgass
  • griesggries · gires · griess · grise · grries · rgies

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "grass" and "gries" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grass" is a noun and "gries" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "grass" or "gries" show up more?
"grass" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,648 in our German list, against #47,460 for "gries". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "grass" vs "gries" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gries" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #688,511 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grass" and "gries" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gries vs Grimms". 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 #688,511 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