Grisly or grizzly?
grisly is an adjective meaning “Horrifyingly repellent; gruesome, terrifying”; grizzly is an adjective meaning “Grey-haired, greyish”. They sound the same (/ˈɡɹɪzli/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) grizzly is about 3.5 times as common as grisly.
What is the difference between grisly and grizzly?
| grisly | grizzly | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, adverb | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | Horrifyingly repellent; gruesome, terrifying | Grey-haired, greyish A grizzly bear CanadaUSA grating used to sieve stones by size, so as to keep stones out of the sluices (in hydraulic mining) or to control stone size in the feed to the ore crusher |
| Example | The photographs of the killings depict a grisly scene | Shotgun blast kills charging grizzly! |
| Forms | grislier, grisliest | grizzlier, grizzliest |
| Pronunciation | /ˈɡɹɪzli/ | /ˈɡɹɪzli/ |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words | 1.9 times per million words |
Sources: grisly and grizzly in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of grisly and grizzly
grisly
- 1
Horrifyingly repellent; gruesome, terrifying
The photographs of the killings depict a grisly scene
grizzly
- 1
Grey-haired, greyish
- 2
A grizzly bear
Shotgun blast kills charging grizzly!
- 3
Crying or whingeing in a bad-tempered or irritable way
a grizzly baby
- 4
CanadaUSA grating used to sieve stones by size, so as to keep stones out of the sluices (in hydraulic mining) or to control stone size in the feed to the ore crusher
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, grisly or grizzly?
grisly appears about once in every 2 million words; grizzly 1.9 times per million words.
grisly about once in every 2 million wordsgrizzly 1.9 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search grisly vs grizzly?
“grisly vs grizzly” is searched about 50 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“grizzly vs grisly”, “grisly or grizzly”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.