grassvswellsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#15,648
“grass” frequency rank
#17,186
“wells” frequency rank
32834
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grass wells
Definition Gras, Rasen 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs well

Letter map: grass vs wells

Shared letters muted; letters that set grass and wells apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. grass (CCVCC) and wells (CVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
grass
5 ch
wells

Grammar separator: grass vs wells

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grass is anoun and wellsaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32834, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grass is recorded at frequency rank #15,648, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. wells is at rank #17,186, tagged as averb, 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 32834, this pair ranks #1,699,053 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of grass vs wells

Shared letters: s. Private to "grass": agr. Private to "wells": elw.

"grass" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "wells" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grassgarss · ggrass · graß · grrass · grsas · rgass
  • wellsewlls · wellss · welsl · wlels · wwells

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "grass" and "wells" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grass" is a noun and "wells" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "grass" or "wells" show up more?
"grass" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,648 in our German list, against #17,186 for "wells". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "grass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wells" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,699,053 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grass" and "wells" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs wells". 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 #1,699,053 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