grotty
"grotty" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“grotty” is uncommon English (frequency #93,760 among 2,313 “G” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #93,760
- frequency rank, English
- 2,313
- “G” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Unpleasant, dirty, slovenly or offensive.
Corpus desk
Index EN-grotty · grotty · English
grotty · rank #93,760 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #93,760
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,313
- PHOTO-FINISH Greengrass
Nearest frequency peer: Greengrass (-3 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 “grotty”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- granuloma
granuloma
6,246 corpus weight
- Greengrass
Greengrass
6,244 corpus weight
- grotty
grotty
6,241 corpus weight
- guffaw
guffaw
6,237 corpus weight
- gummed
gummed
6,236 corpus weight
- Gundersen
Gundersen
6,235 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “grotty” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | grotty |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #93,760 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “grotty” in English
Rare enough to double-check
grotty is uncommon English at frequency #93,760 among 2,313 “G” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Unpleasant, dirty, slovenly or offensive.".
grotty has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Clipping of grotesque + -y. Piecewise doublet of grody, the American equivalent. Compare Middle English groti, grooti (“slimy, muddy”), from Old English grotiġ (“earthy, dirty”) (modern dialectal English groaty, Scots grotty), which is equivalent to groat +… The correct English form is grotty, spelled G-R-O-T-T-Y.
Definition
- 1Unpleasant, dirty, slovenly or offensive.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how grotty appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
George: I wouldn't be seen dead in them. They're dead grotty. Simon: Grotty? George: Yeah, grotesque.
Etymology
Clipping of grotesque + -y. Piecewise doublet of grody, the American equivalent. Compare Middle English groti, grooti (“slimy, muddy”), from Old English grotiġ (“earthy, dirty”) (modern dialectal English groaty, Scots grotty), which is equivalent to groat + -y. Compare also Scottish Gaelic grod (“rotten, lousy, terrible”), Middle Irish grot (“bitter, sour”). Originated or popularised by the 1964 film A Hard Day's Night, starring the Beatles and written by Alun Owen.
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 "grotty", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).