grocervsgrosserWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: grocer is a noun, grosser is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#28,573
“grocer” frequency rank
#49,370
“grosser” frequency rank
77943
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grocer grosser
Definition A person who retails groceries (foodstuffs and household items) from a grocery. comparative form of gross: more gross

Letter map: grocer vs grosser

Shared letters muted; letters that set grocer and grosser apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. grocer runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against grosser's 7 (CCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
grocer
7 ch
grosser

Role in the sentence - grocer and grosser

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grocer is anoun and grosseranadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77943, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grocer is recorded at frequency rank #28,573, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɡɹəʊ.sə/. grosser is at rank #49,370, 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 77943, this pair ranks #25,912 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of grocer vs grosser

Shared letters: egor. Private to "grocer": c. Private to "grosser": s.

"grocer" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "grosser" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grocerggrocer · gorcer · grcoer · groccer · grocerr · grocre · groecr · grrocer
  • grosserggrosser · gorsser · groser · grosesr · grosserr · grossre · grrosser · grsoser

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "grocer" for "grosser" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grocer" is a noun and "grosser" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "grocer" vs "grosser" - which ranks higher?
"grocer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,573 in our English list, against #49,370 for "grosser". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "grocer" and "grosser". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grocer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grosser" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #25,912 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grocer" and "grosser" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grasse vs grosser". 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 #25,912 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