Which to use
“glue” is a verb and “grue” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,681
- “glue” frequency rank
- #16,633
- “grue” frequency rank
- 66314
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | glue | grue |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de gluer. | Gros oiseau voyageur, de l’ordre des Échassiers, qui vole fort haut et par bandes. |
Where the eye mixes glue and grue
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. glue and grue follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between glue and grue
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: glue is \ɡly\ while grue is \ɡʁy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “glue” becomes r in “grue”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66314, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
glue is recorded at frequency rank #49,681, classified as averb, pronounced \ɡly\. grue is at rank #16,633, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁy\.
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 66314, this pair ranks #68,367 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of glue vs grue
Shared letters: egu. Private to "glue": l. Private to "grue": r.
"glue" · 4 letters · shape CCVV · "grue" · 4 letters · shape CCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "glue" and "grue" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "glue" or "grue"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "glue" and "grue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "glue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "grue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #68,367 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "glue" and "grue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glane vs glue". 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 #68,367 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.