grondevsgrosseWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: gronde is a verb, grosse is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gronde” is a verb and “grosse” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,340
“gronde” frequency rank
#981
“grosse” frequency rank
26321
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gronde grosse
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de gronder. Une douzaine de douzaines.

Where the eye mixes gronde and grosse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
gronde
6 ch
grosse

Look-alike desk: gronde vs grosse

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gronde is \ɡʁɔ̃d\ while grosse is \ɡʁos\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26321, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gronde is recorded at frequency rank #25,340, classified as averb, pronounced \ɡʁɔ̃d\. grosse is at rank #981, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡʁos\.

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 26321, this pair ranks #335,746 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of gronde vs grosse

Shared letters: egor. Private to "gronde": dn. Private to "grosse": s.

"gronde" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "grosse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grondeggronde · gornde · grnode · grodne · grondde · groned · gronnde · grronde
  • grosseggrosse · gorsse · grose · groses · grrosse · grsose · rgosse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gronde" and "grosse" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gronde" is a verb and "grosse" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "gronde" or "grosse" show up more?
"grosse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #981 in our French list, against #25,340 for "gronde". 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 "gronde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grosse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #335,746 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gronde" and "grosse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gronde vs grunge". 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 #335,746 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