grévsgridWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#5,767
“gré” frequency rank
#41,315
“grid” frequency rank
47082
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gré grid
Definition Volonté, caprice, fantaisie. Grille.

Where the eye mixes gré and grid

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
gré
4 ch
grid

Why the eye confuses gré with grid

A purely visual mix-up. gré (\ɡʁe\) and grid (\ˈɡrɪd\) 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 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47082, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gré is recorded at frequency rank #5,767, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁe\. grid is at rank #41,315, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈɡrɪd\.

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 47082, this pair ranks #189,796 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gré vs grid

Shared letters: gr. Private to "gré": é. Private to "grid": di.

"gré" · 3 letters · shape CCV  ·  "grid" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gridggrid · gird · grdi · gridd · grrid · rgid

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gré" for "grid" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡʁe\ versus \ˈɡrɪd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "gré" vs "grid" - which ranks higher?
"gré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,767 in our French list, against #41,315 for "grid". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grid" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #189,796 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gré" and "grid" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "grid vs grow". 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 #189,796 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