griesvsgripsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#47,460
“gries” frequency rank
#43,230
“grips” frequency rank
90690
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gries grips
Definition grau, grauhaarig oder trübe beim Wetter Plural des Substantivs grip

Letter map: gries vs grips

Shared letters muted; letters that set gries and grips apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. gries (CCVVC) and grips (CCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
gries
5 ch
grips

Role in the sentence - gries and grips

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gries is anadjective and gripsanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “gries” becomes p in “grips”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90690, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gries is recorded at frequency rank #47,460, classified as anadj, pronounced [ɡʁiːs]. grips is at rank #43,230, 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 90690, this pair ranks #44,626 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gries vs grips

Shared letters: girs. Private to "gries": e. Private to "grips": p.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gries ← ggries · gires · griess · grise · grries · rgies
  • grips ← ggrips · girps · gripps · gripss · grisp · grpis · grrips · rgips

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gries" and "grips" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gries" is an adjective and "grips" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "gries" or "grips" show up more?
"grips" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,230 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

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "gries" and "grips".

  • Full dictionary entry for "gries" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grips" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #44,626 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gries" and "grips" 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 #44,626 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