gotsvsgrossTell them apart

Quick tell: gots is a verb, gross is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gots” is a verb and “gross” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,153
“gots” frequency rank
#3,305
“gross” frequency rank
44458
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gots gross
Definition Has, has got (3rd person singular). Highly or conspicuously offensive.

Letter map: gots vs gross

Shared letters muted; letters that set gots and gross apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. gots runs 4 letters (CVCC) against gross's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
gots
5 ch
gross

Role in the sentence - gots and gross

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gots is averb and grossanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44458, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gots is recorded at frequency rank #41,153, classified as averb. gross is at rank #3,305, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɡɹəʊs/.

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 44458, this pair ranks #230,375 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gots vs gross

Shared letters: gos. Private to "gots": t. Private to "gross": r.

"gots" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "gross" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gots ← ggots · gost · gotss · gotts · gtos · ogts
  • gross ← ggross · gorss · gros · grross · grsos · rgoss

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gots" and "gross" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gots" is a verb and "gross" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "gots" or "gross" show up more?
"gross" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,305 in our English list, against #41,153 for "gots". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "gots" and "gross".

  • Full dictionary entry for "gots" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gross" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #230,375 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gots" and "gross" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "goer vs gots". 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 #230,375 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list