griesvsguidesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#47,460
“gries” frequency rank
#39,409
“guides” frequency rank
86869
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gries guides
Definition grau, grauhaarig oder trübe beim Wetter Plural des Substantivs guide

Letter map: gries vs guides

Shared letters muted; letters that set gries and guides apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. gries runs 5 letters (CCVVC) against guides's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
gries
6 ch
guides

Role in the sentence - gries and guides

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gries is anadjective and guidesanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86869, 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]. guides is at rank #39,409, 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 86869, this pair ranks #87,880 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gries vs guides

Shared letters: egis. Private to "gries": r. Private to "guides": du.

"gries" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "guides" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gries ← ggries · gires · griess · grise · grries · rgies
  • guides ← gguides · giudes · gudies · guiddes · guidess · guidse · guieds · ugides

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gries" and "guides" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gries" is an adjective and "guides" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "gries" or "guides"?
"guides" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,409 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gries" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guides" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #87,880 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gries" and "guides" 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 #87,880 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