Which to use
“groove” is a noun and “grooved” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,552
- “groove” frequency rank
- #48,786
- “grooved” frequency rank
- 59338
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | groove | grooved |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A long, narrow channel or depression; e.g., such a slot cut into a hard material to provide a location for an engineering component, a tire groove, or a geological channel or depression. | Having one or more grooves. |
Letter map: groove vs grooved
Shared letters muted; letters that set groove and grooved apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. groove runs 6 letters (CCVVCV) against grooved's 7 (CCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for groove / grooved
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: groove is anoun and groovedanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “groove” sits inside “grooved”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59338, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
groove is recorded at frequency rank #10,552, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɹuːv/. 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 59338, this pair ranks #106,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of groove vs grooved
Shared letters: egorv. Private to "groove": -. Private to "grooved": d.
"groove" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV · "grooved" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "groove" for "grooved" ever safe?
Frequency check: "groove" vs "grooved" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
You've compared "groove" and "grooved". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "groove" 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 #106,821 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "groove" 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 #106,821 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.