grass
[ɡɹ̠ɑːs]noun, verb
grass is spelled G-R-A-S-S: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 24 times per million words in written English, the 3,752nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, grass means “Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of grass is grasses.
How many letters and syllables are in grass?
| Letters | 5: G-R-A-S-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 24 times per million words; the 3,752nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is grass?
Grass appears 24 times per million words in written English, the 3,752nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce grass?
- /ɡɹɑːs/
- UK [ɡɹ̠ɑːs]
- Australia [ɡɹ̠äːs]
Grass has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-grass.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-grass.wav, En-us-grass.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of grass
- grasses plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- grassing participle, present
- grassed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does grass mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as ground cover rather than for grain.
- 2
Any of the various plants that are not in the family Poaceae that resemble grasses.
- 3
A lawn.
- 4
The outside world, especially in the phrase "touch grass".
- 5
slangMarijuana.
- 6
UKslangAn informer; snitch, police informer; one who betrays a group (of criminals, etc) to the authorities.
What just happened must remain secret. Don't be a grass.
- 7
Sharp, closely spaced discontinuities in the trace of a cathode-ray tube, produced by random interference.
- 8
slangNoise on an A-scope or similar type of radar display.
verb
- 1
To lay out on the grass; to knock down (an opponent etc.).
- 2
slangTo act as a grass or informer, to betray; to report on (criminals etc) to the authorities.
- 3
To cover with grass or with turf.
- 4
To feed with grass.
- 5
To expose, as flax, on the grass for bleaching, etc.
- 6
To bring to the grass or ground; to land.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Grass in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | herbe , pelouse, gazon , beuh , balance , moucharder |
| German | Gras, gras, chrud, weidu, gròs, groos |
| Portuguese | grama, relva , gramado, relvado , erva , delatar |
| Spanish | pasto, hierba, grama, zacate, gasón, gramilla |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does grass come from?
Inherited from Middle English gras, from Old English græs, from Proto-West Germanic *gras, from Proto-Germanic *grasą (“grass”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreh₁- (“to grow”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).