grossevsgrosslyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: grosse is a noun, grossly is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“grosse” is a noun and “grossly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,160
“grosse” frequency rank
#18,841
“grossly” frequency rank
60001
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grosse grossly
Definition Obsolete spelling of gross. Greatly; to a large degree, especially one large enough to be frankly appreciable.

Letter map: grosse vs grossly

Shared letters muted; letters that set grosse and grossly apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. grosse 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.

6 ch
grosse
7 ch
grossly

Grammar separator: grosse vs grossly

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: grosse is anoun and grosslyanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60001, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grosse is recorded at frequency rank #41,160, classified as anoun. 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 60001, this pair ranks #102,782 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of grosse vs grossly

Shared letters: gors. Private to "grosse": e. Private to "grossly": ly.

"grosse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "grossly" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grosseggrosse · gorsse · grose · groses · grrosse · grsose · rgosse
  • grosslyggrossly · gorssly · groslsy · grosly · grosslly · grosslyy · grossyl · grrossly

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "grosse" and "grossly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grosse" is a noun and "grossly" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "grosse" or "grossly" show up more?
"grossly" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,841 in our English list, against #41,160 for "grosse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "grosse" and "grossly".

  • Full dictionary entry for "grosse" 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 #102,782 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grosse" and "grossly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grosse 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 #102,782 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