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PlainSpell

grow

UK /ˈɡɹəʊ/verb, noun

grow is spelled G-R-O-W. The wrong spelling people search most is grwo: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 345 of all searches for the word. Grow is a verb meaning “To become larger, to increase in magnitude”.

How many letters and syllables are in grow?

Letters4: G-R-O-W
Syllables1
In writing79 times per million words; the 1,338th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, grwo, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell grow?

Grow is spelled G-R-O-W. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 346 of the searches for grow in either form.

growthe right spelling10,360 searches a month
grwoo and w swapped30 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is grow?

Grow appears 79 times per million words in written English, the 1,338th 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 grow?

  • UK /ˈɡɹəʊ/
  • UK /ˈɡɹɵ̞ʊ/
  • [ˈɡɾoː]

Grow has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-grow.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with grow?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as grow from its last stressed vowel (/əʊ/, British pronunciation):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of grow

  • grows present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • growing participle, present
  • grew past
  • grown participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does grow mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To become larger, to increase in magnitude.

    Children grow quickly.

  2. 2

    To undergo growth; to be present (somewhere).

    Apples now grow all over the world.

  3. 3

    To appear or sprout.

    Leaf buds grew on the trees with the advance of spring.

  4. 4

    To develop, to mature.

    As I grew throughout adolescence, I came to appreciate many things about human nature.

  5. 5

    To cause or allow something to become bigger, especially to cultivate plants.

    He grows peppers and squash each summer in his garden.

  6. 6

    To assume a condition or quality over time.

    Near-synonyms: become, get, go, turn, come, fall, wax

  7. 7

    obsoleteTo become attached or fixed; to adhere.

noun

  1. 1

    An illicit cannabis farm.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Grow in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchgrandir, croître ((intransitive) to become bigger), pousser ((intransitive) to appear or sprout), accroître, faire croître ((transitive) to cause something to become bigger)
Germanwachsen ((intransitive) to become bigger), anbauen, ziehen, züchten ((transitive) to cause something to become bigger)
Portuguesecrescer ((intransitive) to become bigger), cultivar ((transitive) to cause something to become bigger)
Spanishcrecer ((intransitive) to become bigger), cultivar, acrecer ((transitive) to cause something to become bigger), comenzar (to assume a condition or quality)

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 grow come from?

From Middle English growen, from Old English grōwan (“to grow, increase, flourish, germinate”), from Proto-West Germanic *grōan, from Proto-Germanic *grōaną (“to grow, grow green”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreh₁- (“to grow, become green”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after grow