grandesvsgravéesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#647
“grandes” frequency rank
#23,227
“gravées” frequency rank
23874
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grandes gravées
Definition Féminin pluriel de grand. Féminin pluriel de gravé.

Where the eye mixes grandes and gravées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
grandes
7 ch
gravées

Look-alike desk: grandes vs gravées

A purely visual mix-up. grandes (\ɡʁɑ̃d\) and gravées (\ɡʁa.ve\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23874, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grandes is recorded at frequency rank #647, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɡʁɑ̃d\. gravées is at rank #23,227, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɡʁa.ve\.

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 23874, this pair ranks #349,946 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of grandes vs gravées

Shared letters: aegrs. Private to "grandes": dn. Private to "gravées": .

"grandes" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "gravées" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grandesgarndes · ggrandes · gradnes · granddes · grandess · grandse · graneds · granndes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "grandes" for "gravées" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡʁɑ̃d\ versus \ɡʁa.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "grandes" or "gravées" show up more?
"grandes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #647 in our French list, against #23,227 for "gravées". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "grandes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gravées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #349,946 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grandes" and "gravées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gravées vs graveurs". 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 #349,946 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