GradyvsgrimyTell them apart

Quick tell: Grady is a name, grimy is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#24,174
“Grady” frequency rank
#38,870
“grimy” frequency rank
63044
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Grady grimy
Definition A surname from Irish. Stained or covered with grime.

Where the eye mixes Grady and grimy

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Grady and grimy follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Grady
5 ch
grimy

Visual trap between Grady and grimy

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Grady is /ˈɡɹeɪdi/ while grimy is /ˈɡɹaɪmi/. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63044, 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/. grimy is at rank #38,870, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɹaɪmi/.

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 63044, this pair ranks #85,196 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Grady vs grimy

Shared letters: gry. Private to "Grady": ad. Private to "grimy": im.

"Grady" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "grimy" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Grady ← gardy · ggrady · graddy · gradyy · grayd · grday · grrady · rgady
  • grimy ← ggrimy · girmy · grimmy · grimyy · griym · grmiy · grrimy · rgimy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Grady" and "grimy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Grady" is a name and "grimy" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Grady" vs "grimy" - which ranks higher?
"Grady" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,174 in our English list, against #38,870 for "grimy". 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 "grimy" 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 "grimy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,196 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Grady" and "grimy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grimly vs grimy". 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 #85,196 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