grassvsgrasseWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“grass” and “grasse” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,758
“grass” frequency rank
#49,365
“grasse” frequency rank
53123
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grass grasse
Definition Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as ground cover rather than for grain. Obsolete form of grass.

Letter map: grass vs grasse

Shared letters muted; letters that set grass and grasse apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
grass
6 ch
grasse

Spelling & dictionary notes on grass vs grasse

grass and grasse are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “grass” sits inside “grasse”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53123, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grass is recorded at frequency rank #3,758, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹɑːs/. grasse is at rank #49,365, tagged as anoun.

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 53123, this pair ranks #151,533 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of grass vs grasse

Shared letters: agrs. Private to "grass": -. Private to "grasse": e.

"grass" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "grasse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grassgarss · ggrass · grrass · grsas · rgass
  • grassegarsse · ggrasse · grase · grases · grrasse · grsase · rgasse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "grass" for "grasse" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “grass” sits inside “grasse”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "grass" vs "grasse" - which ranks higher?
"grass" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,758 in our English list, against #49,365 for "grasse". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "grass" and "grasse". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grass" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grasse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,533 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grass" and "grasse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grasse vs grosser". 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 #151,533 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