Which to use
“grain” and “grains” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,329
- “grain” frequency rank
- #11,221
- “grains” frequency rank
- 16550
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | grain | grains |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The harvested seeds of various grass food crops eg: wheat, corn, barley. | Pigeons' dung used in tanning. See grainer. |
Where the eye mixes grain and grains
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. grain (/ɡɹeɪn/) and grains (/ɡɹeɪnz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “grain” sits inside “grains”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16550, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
grain is recorded at frequency rank #5,329, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹeɪn/. grains is at rank #11,221, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹeɪnz/.
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 16550, this pair ranks #457,048 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of grain vs grains
Shared letters: aginr. Private to "grain": -. Private to "grains": s.
"grain" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "grains" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC