great
/ˈɡɹeɪt/
"great" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“great” has 6 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #138. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #138
- frequency rank, English
- 2,313
- “G” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Taking much space; large.
Corpus desk
Index EN-great · great · English
great · rank #138 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #138
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,313
- PHOTO-FINISH down
Nearest frequency peer: down (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “great”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- say
say
99,866 corpus weight
- world
world
99,865 corpus weight
- down
down
99,864 corpus weight
- great
great
99,863 corpus weight
- through
through
99,862 corpus weight
- you're
you're
99,861 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “great” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | great |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈɡɹeɪt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #138 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “great” sits in English frequency
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around great (IPA /ˈɡɹeɪt/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #138 among 2,313 “G” headwords. Wiktionary lists 13 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for great, with forms such as "gerat", "ggreat", and "graet". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "grt", "grew", "grey", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English greet (“great, large”), from Old English grēat (“big, thick, coarse, massive”), from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-, *gʰer- (“to rub, gr… The correct English form is great, spelled G-R-E-A-T.
Definition
- 1Taking much space; large.
- 2Taking much space; large.
- 3Taking much space; large.
- 4Very good; excellent; wonderful; fantastic.
- 5Important, consequential.
- 6Involving more generations than the qualified word implies — as many extra generations as repetitions of the word great (from 1510s).
- 7Pregnant; large with young; full of.
- 8Intimate; familiar.
- 9Arising from or possessing idealism; admirable; commanding; illustrious; eminent.
- 10Impressive or striking.
- 11Much in use; favoured.
- 12Of much talent or achievements.
- 13Doing or exemplifying (a characteristic or pursuit) on a large scale; active or enthusiastic.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how great appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
“[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like // Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer.[…]”
‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]’
Etymology
From Middle English greet (“great, large”), from Old English grēat (“big, thick, coarse, massive”), from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-, *gʰer- (“to rub, grind, remove”). Cognates Cognate with Scots graat, great, greet (“great”), Yola graat (“great”), North Frisian grat, groot, grot, grut, gurt (“big, great, large”), Saterland Frisian groot (“big, large”), West Frisian grut (“big, great, large”), Alemannic German groß, gruuss (“very large”), Central Franconian jruß (“big, great, large”), Cimbrian gròas, groaz (“big, great, large”), Dutch and German Low German groot (“big, great, large”), German gross, groß (“big, large”), Luxembourgish grouss (“big, great, large”), Mòcheno groas (“big, great, large”), Vilamovian grus, grūs (“big, great, large”), Yiddish גרויס (groys, “big, large”); also Latin grandis (“big, great, large”). Related to grit. Doublet of gross. The modern pronunciation shows an irregular change of Early Modern English /ɛː/ to /eɪ/ in the standard language; contrast this with the development of other words such as beat and heat.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- gerat
- ggreat
- graet
- greatt
- grreat
- rgeat
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of great - 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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 3, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "great", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "great". Here's where to go from here.
- "great" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "grt". View pair
- 6 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #138 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "G" letter cohort. G–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.