grassvslilleWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#15,648
“grass” frequency rank
#31,159
“lille” frequency rank
46807
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grass lille
Definition Gras, Rasen klein

Letter map: grass vs lille

Shared letters muted; letters that set grass and lille apart highlighted. No shared letter run. grass (CCVCC) and lille (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
grass
5 ch
lille

Grammar separator: grass vs lille

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grass is anoun and lilleanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46807, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grass is recorded at frequency rank #15,648, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. lille is at rank #31,159, tagged as anadj, 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 46807, this pair ranks #1,306,305 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of grass vs lille

Shared letters: none. Private to "grass": agrs. Private to "lille": eil.

"grass" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "lille" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grassgarss · ggrass · graß · grrass · grsas · rgass
  • lilleillle · lile · lilel · llile · llille

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "grass" and "lille" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grass" is a noun and "lille" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "grass" or "lille" show up more?
"grass" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,648 in our German list, against #31,159 for "lille". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "grass" and "lille".

  • Full dictionary entry for "grass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lille" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,306,305 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grass" and "lille" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lille 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 #1,306,305 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