Grim Reaper
/ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹiː.pə/
"grim-reaper" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Grim Reaper” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a proper noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A personification of Death as an old man, or a skeleton, carrying a scythe, taking souls to the afterlife.
Corpus desk
Index EN-grim-reaper · Grim Reaper · English
Grim Reaper · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "G" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Grim Reaper |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹiː.pə/ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “Grim Reaper” in English
Rare enough to double-check
Grim Reaper is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as aproper noun, transcribed /ˈɡɹɪm ˈɹiː.pə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A personification of Death as an old man, or a skeleton, carrying a scythe, taking souls to the afterlife.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for Grim Reaper, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From grim + reaper, first attested 1847. The word grim previously had a stronger meaning ("fierce, angry, sinister") and had more of an association with ghostliness (compare Old English grima (“specter, apparition”), English grim (n.)). The association betw… The correct English form is Grim Reaper, spelled G-R-I-M- -R-E-A-P-E-R.
Definition
- 1A personification of Death as an old man, or a skeleton, carrying a scythe, taking souls to the afterlife.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Grim Reaper appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Her husband was dead, and Werper fancied that he could replace in the girl’s heart the position which had been vacated by the act of the grim reaper.
"Golly, I feel like the devil!" muttered Anthony dispassionately. Relaxing, he tumbled back upon his pillow. "Bring on your grim reaper!"
Etymology
From grim + reaper, first attested 1847. The word grim previously had a stronger meaning ("fierce, angry, sinister") and had more of an association with ghostliness (compare Old English grima (“specter, apparition”), English grim (n.)). The association between grim and death dates back to at least the late 16th century (the line "grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image" appears in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew around 1590). The reaper element comes from the personification of Death as a reaper (harvester) of souls in connection to the popular depiction of Death wielding a scythe. The symbol of the scythe itself comes from a partially unintentional conflation of Cronus (the Titan associated with the harvest, said to have used his scythe to castrate his father Uranus) and Chronos (the personification of Father Time).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.