grappevsgrasseWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: grappe is a noun, grasse is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“grappe” is a noun and “grasse” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,878
“grappe” frequency rank
#7,967
“grasse” frequency rank
31845
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature grappe grasse
Definition Assemblage de fleurs (inflorescence), de fruits ou de grains, portés sur une même tige, chaque élément étant pédicellé. Féminin singulier de gras.

Where the eye mixes grappe and grasse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. grappe and grasse follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
grappe
6 ch
grasse

Look-alike desk: grappe vs grasse

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: grappe is \ɡʁap\ while grasse is \ɡʁɑs\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31845, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

grappe is recorded at frequency rank #23,878, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁap\. grasse is at rank #7,967, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɡʁɑs\.

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 31845, this pair ranks #301,192 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of grappe vs grasse

Shared letters: aegr. Private to "grappe": p. Private to "grasse": s.

"grappe" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "grasse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grappe ← garppe · ggrappe · grape · grapep · grpape · grrappe · rgappe
  • grasse ← garsse · ggrasse · grase · grases · grrasse · grsase · rgasse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "grappe" for "grasse" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "grappe" is a noun and "grasse" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "grappe" or "grasse" show up more?
"grasse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,967 in our French list, against #23,878 for "grappe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "grappe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grasse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #301,192 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "grappe" and "grasse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Graeme vs grappe". 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 #301,192 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