gravsgrayTell them apart

Which to use

“gra” and “gray” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,481
“gra” frequency rank
#12,973
“gray” frequency rank
57454
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gra gray
Definition Acte, action. Unité de mesure de dose absorbée du Système international (SI), définie comme valant 1 joule par kilogramme. Son symbole est Gy.

Where the eye mixes gra and gray

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

3 ch
gra
4 ch
gray

Visual trap between gra and gray

A purely visual mix-up. gra (\ˈɡrɑː\) and gray (\ɡʁe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “gra” sits inside “gray”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57454, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gra is recorded at frequency rank #44,481, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈɡrɑː\. gray is at rank #12,973, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁe\.

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 57454, this pair ranks #114,959 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gra vs gray

Shared letters: agr. Private to "gra": -. Private to "gray": y.

"gra" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "gray" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grayggray · grayy · grray · grya · rgay

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gra" and "gray" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈɡrɑː\ versus \ɡʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "gra" or "gray" show up more?
"gray" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,973 in our French list, against #44,481 for "gra". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "gra" and "gray" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gra" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #114,959 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gra" and "gray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gra vs gx". 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 #114,959 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list