grilvsgrillTell them apart

Which to use

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

#39,326
“gril” frequency rank
#24,616
“grill” frequency rank
63942
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gril grill
Definition Ustensile de cuisine qui est fait de plusieurs lames de fer parallèles, fixées à quelque distance l’une de l’autre, et sur lequel on fait rôtir de la viande ou du poisson. Toute surface pour la cuisson vive des aliments sans corps gras. Restaurant où l’on sert des grillades.

Same sound, different letters: gril vs grill

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. gril runs 4 letters (CCVC) against grill's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
gril
5 ch
grill

Same sound, different spelling - gril / grill

This is the hard kind. gril and grill are pronounced identically (\ɡʁil\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “gril” sits inside “grill”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63942, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gril is recorded at frequency rank #39,326, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁil\. grill is at rank #24,616, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁil\.

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 63942, this pair ranks #79,421 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gril vs grill

Shared letters: gilr. Private to "gril": -. Private to "grill": -.

"gril" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "grill" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gril ← ggril · grli · grril · rgil
  • grill ← ggrill · grlil · grrill · rgill

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gril" and "grill" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɡʁil\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "gril" vs "grill" - which ranks higher?
"grill" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,616 in our French list, against #39,326 for "gril". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"gril" and "grill" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gril" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grill" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #79,421 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gril" and "grill" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gril 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 #79,421 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