Which to use
“grisly” is an adjective and “grossly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #39,834
- “grisly” frequency rank
- #18,841
- “grossly” frequency rank
- 58675
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | grisly | grossly |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Horrifyingly repellent; gruesome, terrifying. | Greatly; to a large degree, especially one large enough to be frankly appreciable. |
Where the eye mixes grisly and grossly
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. grisly runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against grossly's 7 (CCVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between grisly and grossly
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: grisly is /ˈɡɹɪzli/ while grossly is /ˈɡɹoʊsli/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58675, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
grisly is recorded at frequency rank #39,834, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɹɪzli/. grossly is at rank #18,841, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈɡɹoʊsli/.
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 58675, this pair ranks #111,039 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of grisly vs grossly
Shared letters: glrsy. Private to "grisly": i. Private to "grossly": o.
"grisly" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV · "grossly" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "grisly" for "grossly" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "grisly" or "grossly" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "grisly" and "grossly" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "grisly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "grossly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #111,039 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "grisly" and "grossly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grimly vs grisly". 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 #111,039 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.