Which to use
“grease” is a noun and “greasy” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,855
- “grease” frequency rank
- #16,036
- “greasy” frequency rank
- 26891
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | grease | greasy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Animal fat in a melted or soft state. | Having a slippery surface; having a surface covered with grease. |
Where the eye mixes grease and greasy
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. grease and greasy follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: grease vs greasy
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: grease is /ɡɹis/ while greasy is /ˈɡɹi.si/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “grease” becomes y in “greasy”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26891, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
grease is recorded at frequency rank #10,855, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹis/. greasy is at rank #16,036, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɹi.si/.
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 26891, this pair ranks #383,280 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of grease vs greasy
Shared letters: aegrs. Private to "grease": -. Private to "greasy": y.
"grease" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV · "greasy" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "grease" and "greasy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "grease" or "greasy" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "grease" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "greasy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #383,280 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "grease" and "greasy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grasse vs grease". 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 #383,280 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.