givevsgraveTell them apart

Quick tell: give is a verb, grave is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“give” is a verb and “grave” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,511
“give” frequency rank
#1,637
“grave” frequency rank
26148
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature give grave
Definition Dar. De gran importancia o con consecuencias serias.

Where the eye mixes give and grave

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
give
5 ch
grave

Look-alike desk: give vs grave

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: give is /gɪv/ while grave is [ˈgɾaβ̞e]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26148, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

give is recorded at frequency rank #24,511, classified as averb, pronounced /gɪv/. grave is at rank #1,637, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈgɾaβ̞e].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 26148, this pair ranks #233,070 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of give vs grave

Shared letters: egv. Private to "give": i. Private to "grave": ar.

"give" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "grave" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • giveggive · gibe · giev · givve · gvie · igve
  • gravegarve · ggrave · graev · gravve · grrave · grvae · rgave

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "give" and "grave" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "give" is a verb and "grave" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "give" or "grave" show up more?
"grave" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,637 in our Spanish list, against #24,511 for "give". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "give" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grave" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #233,070 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "give" and "grave" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "give vs given". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #233,070 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list