greenvsgrèvesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#5,985
“green” frequency rank
#10,333
“grèves” frequency rank
16318
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature green grèves
Definition Zone d’un parcours de golf, où se trouve le trou. Pluriel de grève.

Where the eye mixes green and grèves

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

5 ch
green
6 ch
grèves

Why the eye confuses green with grèves

A purely visual mix-up. green (\ɡʁin\) and grèves (\ɡʁɛv\) 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 16318, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

green is recorded at frequency rank #5,985, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁin\. grèves is at rank #10,333, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁɛv\.

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 16318, this pair ranks #388,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of green vs grèves

Shared letters: egr. Private to "green": n. Private to "grèves": svè.

"green" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "grèves" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • greengeren · ggreen · greenn · gren · grene · grreen · rgeen

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "green" and "grèves" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɡʁin\ versus \ɡʁɛv\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "green" or "grèves"?
"green" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,985 in our French list, against #10,333 for "grèves". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "green" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grèves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "green" and "grèves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Greek vs grèves". 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 #388,368 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