grift
/ɡɹɪft/
"grift" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“grift” is uncommon English (frequency #68,267 among 2,313 “G” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #68,267
- frequency rank, English
- 2,313
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A confidence game or swindle.
Corpus desk
Index EN-grift · grift · English
grift · rank #68,267 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #68,267
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,313
- PHOTO-FINISH gratify
Nearest frequency peer: gratify (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “grift”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- gratify
gratify
31,735 corpus weight
- grift
grift
31,734 corpus weight
- Grigory
Grigory
31,733 corpus weight
- grovel
grovel
31,732 corpus weight
- grunted
grunted
31,731 corpus weight
- Gujrat
Gujrat
31,730 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “grift” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | grift |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɹɪft/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #68,267 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “grift” in English
Rare enough to double-check
grift is uncommon English at frequency #68,267 among 2,313 “G” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ɡɹɪft/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A confidence game or swindle.".
No misspelling variants are generated for grift in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: American criminal underworld slang, 1906 (noun), 1915 (verb), alteration of graft (“corruption, illicit profit through corrupt means, bribe, one's occupation”), alteration perhaps influenced by similar sounding words, e.g. drift, etc., probably ultimately f… The correct English form is grift, spelled G-R-I-F-T.
Definition
- 1A confidence game or swindle.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how grift appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Hey, what's the grift? What are you trying to pull?
‘Sounds like he’s trying to stretch out his grift for as long as possible,’ Gentle said. ‘Taking as much from his followers as he can before it falls apart.’
Etymology
American criminal underworld slang, 1906 (noun), 1915 (verb), alteration of graft (“corruption, illicit profit through corrupt means, bribe, one's occupation”), alteration perhaps influenced by similar sounding words, e.g. drift, etc., probably ultimately from Middle Dutch graft (“digging, ditch, canal, trench”) (modern Dutch gracht), related to Dutch graven (“to dig”), English grave (“to dig”).
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "grift", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).