greatvsgreysConfusable pair

Quick tell: great is a adjective, greys is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“great” is an adjective and “greys” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#138
“great” frequency rank
#34,904
“greys” frequency rank
35042
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature great greys
Definition Taking much space; large. Grey trousers and/or jackets worn by prisoners on relatively formal occasions.

Letter map: great vs greys

Shared letters muted; letters that set great and greys apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. great and greys follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
great
5 ch
greys

Grammar separator: great vs greys

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: great is anadjective and greysanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35042, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

great is recorded at frequency rank #138, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɹeɪt/. greys is at rank #34,904, 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 35042, this pair ranks #315,402 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of great vs greys

Shared letters: egr. Private to "great": at. Private to "greys": sy.

"great" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "greys" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • great ← gerat · ggreat · graet · greatt · grreat · rgeat
  • greys ← gerys · ggreys · gresy · greyss · greyys · grreys · gryes · rgeys

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "great" and "greys" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "great" is an adjective and "greys" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "great" vs "greys" - which ranks higher?
"great" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #138 in our English list, against #34,904 for "greys". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "great" and "greys".

  • Full dictionary entry for "great" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "greys" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #315,402 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "great" and "greys" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "greyish vs greys". 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 #315,402 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