gratedvsgreaterTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,769
“grated” frequency rank
#1,343
“greater” frequency rank
26112
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grated greater
Definition Produced by grating. comparative form of great: more great

Where the eye mixes grated and greater

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. grated runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against greater's 7 (CCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
grated
7 ch
greater

Visual trap between grated and greater

A purely visual mix-up. grated (/ˈɡɹeɪtɪd/) and greater (/ˈɡɹeɪtə/) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26112, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grated is recorded at frequency rank #24,769, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪtɪd/. greater is at rank #1,343, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪtə/.

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 26112, this pair ranks #389,142 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of grated vs greater

Shared letters: aegrt. Private to "grated": d. Private to "greater": -.

"grated" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "greater" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grated ← garted · ggrated · graetd · gratde · gratedd · gratted · grrated · grtaed
  • greater ← gerater · ggreater · graeter · greaetr · greaterr · greatre · greatter · gretaer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "grated" for "greater" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈɡɹeɪtɪd/ versus /ˈɡɹeɪtə/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "grated" vs "greater" - which ranks higher?
"greater" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,343 in our English list, against #24,769 for "grated". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grated" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "greater" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #389,142 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grated" and "greater" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grated vs grates". 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 #389,142 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