grade
/ɡɹeɪd/
"grade" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“grade” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #1,660 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,660
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A rating.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | grade |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɹeɪd/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #1,660 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “grade” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for grade is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡɹeɪd/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,660 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for grade, with forms such as "garde", "ggrade", and "gradde". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "GRE", "gray", "grid", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Middle French grade (“a grade, degree”), from Latin gradus (“a step, pace, degree”), from Proto-Italic *graðus, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰradʰ-, *gʰredʰ- (“to walk, go”). Doublet of gradus. Cognate with Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐌹𐌸𐍃 (griþs, “step, grade… The correct English form is grade, spelled G-R-A-D-E.
Definition
- 1A rating.
- 2Performance on a test or other evaluation(s), expressed by a number, letter, or other symbol; a score.
- 3A degree or level of something; a position within a scale; a degree of quality.
- 4Degree (any of the three stages (positive, comparative, superlative) in the comparison of an adjective or an adverb).
- 5A slope (up or down) of a roadway or other passage
- 6A level of primary and secondary education.
- 7A student of a particular grade (used with the grade level).
- 8An area that has been flattened by a grader (construction machine).
- 9The level of the ground.
- 10A gradian.
- 11In a linear system of divisors on an n-dimensional variety, the number of free intersection points of n generic divisors.
- 12A harsh scraping or cutting; a grating.
- 13A taxon united by a level of morphological or physiological complexity that is not a clade.
- 14The degree of malignity of a tumor expressed on a scale.
- 15An eyeglass prescription.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French grade (“a grade, degree”), from Latin gradus (“a step, pace, degree”), from Proto-Italic *graðus, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰradʰ-, *gʰredʰ- (“to walk, go”). Doublet of gradus. Cognate with Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐌹𐌸𐍃 (griþs, “step, grade”), Bavarian Gritt (“step, stride”), Lithuanian gri̇̀diju (“to go, wander”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: garde,ggrade,gradde,graed,grdae,grrade,rgade
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of grade - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “grade”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-R-A-D-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɡɹeɪd/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “GRE” - see the side-by-side comparison. grade vs GRE
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.