Which to use
“grieved” is a verb and “grooved” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #42,678
- “grieved” frequency rank
- #48,786
- “grooved” frequency rank
- 91464
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | grieved | grooved |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of grieve | Having one or more grooves. |
Letter map: grieved vs grooved
Shared letters muted; letters that set grieved and grooved apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. grieved and grooved follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Grammar separator: grieved vs grooved
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grieved is averb and groovedanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 91464, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
grieved is recorded at frequency rank #42,678, classified as averb, pronounced /ɡɹiːvd/. grooved is at rank #48,786, tagged as anadj.
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 91464, this pair ranks #3,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of grieved vs grooved
Shared letters: degrv. Private to "grieved": i. Private to "grooved": o.
"grieved" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC · "grooved" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "grieved" for "grooved" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "grieved" or "grooved" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've compared "grieved" and "grooved". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "grieved" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "grooved" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #3,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "grieved" and "grooved" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gloved vs grooved". 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 #3,281 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.