gagevsgradeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“gage” and “grade” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#40,149
“gage” frequency rank
#7,030
“grade” frequency rank
47179
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gage grade
Definition penhor armação para vedar

Where the eye mixes gage and grade

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. gage runs 4 letters (CVCV) against grade's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
gage
5 ch
grade

Visual trap between gage and grade

A purely visual mix-up. gage (\ɡaʒ\) and grade (/ˈɡɾa.dɨ/) 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 47179, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gage is recorded at frequency rank #40,149, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡaʒ\. grade is at rank #7,030, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɡɾa.dɨ/.

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 47179, this pair ranks #18,093 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gage vs grade

Shared letters: aeg. Private to "gage": -. Private to "grade": dr.

"gage" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "grade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gage ← agge · gaeg · gagge · ggae · ggage
  • grade ← garde · ggrade · gradde · graed · grdae · grrade · rgade

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gage" for "grade" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡaʒ\ versus /ˈɡɾa.dɨ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "gage" or "grade"?
"grade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,030 in our Portuguese list, against #40,149 for "gage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "grade" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,093 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gage" and "grade" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gage vs giga". 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 #18,093 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list