GradyvsgraysWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Grady is a name, grays is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Grady” is a name and “grays” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,174
“Grady” frequency rank
#35,740
“grays” frequency rank
59914
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Grady grays
Definition A surname from Irish. plural of gray

Where the eye mixes Grady and grays

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

5 ch
Grady
5 ch
grays

Why the eye confuses Grady with grays

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Grady is /ˈɡɹeɪdi/ while grays is /ɡɹeɪz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59914, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Grady is recorded at frequency rank #24,174, classified as aname, pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪdi/. grays is at rank #35,740, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹeɪz/.

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 59914, this pair ranks #103,325 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Grady vs grays

Shared letters: agry. Private to "Grady": d. Private to "grays": s.

"Grady" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "grays" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Gradygardy · ggrady · graddy · gradyy · grayd · grday · grrady · rgady
  • graysgarys · ggrays · grayss · grayys · grrays · gryas · rgays

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Grady" and "grays" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Grady" is a name and "grays" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Grady" or "grays"?
"Grady" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,174 in our English list, against #35,740 for "grays". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Grady" and "grays" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Grady" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grays" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #103,325 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Grady" and "grays" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grasse vs grays". 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 #103,325 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