grillsvsgrinsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#32,420
“grills” frequency rank
#36,164
“grins” frequency rank
68584
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grills grins
Definition plural of grill plural of grin

Where the eye mixes grills and grins

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. grills runs 6 letters (CCVCCC) against grins's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
grills
5 ch
grins

Look-alike desk: grills vs grins

A purely visual mix-up. grills (/ɡɹɪlz/) and grins (/ɡɹɪnz/) 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 68584, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grills is recorded at frequency rank #32,420, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹɪlz/. grins is at rank #36,164, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹɪnz/.

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 68584, this pair ranks #58,246 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of grills vs grins

Shared letters: girs. Private to "grills": l. Private to "grins": n.

"grills" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC  ·  "grins" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grills ← ggrills · grillss · grilsl · grlils · grrills · rgills
  • grins ← ggrins · girns · grinns · grinss · grisn · grnis · grrins · rgins

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "grills" and "grins" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɡɹɪlz/ versus /ɡɹɪnz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "grills" vs "grins" - which ranks higher?
"grills" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,420 in our English list, against #36,164 for "grins". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "grills" and "grins" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grills" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58,246 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grills" and "grins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gringo vs grins". 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 #58,246 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