groundvsGründeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#26,904
“ground” frequency rank
#1,596
“Gründe” frequency rank
28500
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ground Gründe
Definition am Boden festhalten Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Grund

Where the eye mixes ground and Gründe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
ground
6 ch
Gründe

Why the eye confuses ground with Gründe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ground is [ɡraʊnd] while Gründe is [ˈɡʁʏndə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28500, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ground is recorded at frequency rank #26,904, classified as averb, pronounced [ɡraʊnd]. Gründe is at rank #1,596, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈɡʁʏndə].

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 28500, this pair ranks #1,783,647 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ground vs Gründe

Shared letters: dgnr. Private to "ground": ou. Private to "Gründe": .

"ground" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC  ·  "Gründe" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • groundgground · gorund · gronud · groudn · groundd · grounnd · grround · gruond

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ground" and "Gründe" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ground" is a verb and "Gründe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "ground" or "Gründe" show up more?
"Gründe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,596 in our German list, against #26,904 for "ground". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ground" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Gründe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,783,647 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ground" and "Gründe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ground vs groups". 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 #1,783,647 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