gearvsgranWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: gear is a verb, gran is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gear” is a verb and “gran” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,339
“gear” frequency rank
#10,731
“gran” frequency rank
35070
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gear gran
Definition cair geada grão/grã, forma reduzida de grande; usa-se somente anteposto ao substantivo.

Letter map: gear vs gran

Shared letters muted; letters that set gear and gran apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. gear (CVVC) and gran (CCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
gear
4 ch
gran

Grammar separator: gear vs gran

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gear is averb and grananadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35070, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gear is recorded at frequency rank #24,339, classified as averb, pronounced /ʒe.ˈaɾ/, /ʒe.ˈa/. gran is at rank #10,731, tagged as anadj.

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 35070, this pair ranks #32,040 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gear vs gran

Shared letters: agr. Private to "gear": e. Private to "gran": n.

"gear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "gran" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gear ← egar · gaer · gera · ggear
  • gran ← garn · ggran · grann · grna · grran · rgan

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gear" for "gran" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gear" is a verb and "gran" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "gear" vs "gran" - which ranks higher?
"gran" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,731 in our Portuguese list, against #24,339 for "gear". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "gear" and "gran".

  • Full dictionary entry for "gear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gran" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,040 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gear" and "gran" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gear vs Guam". 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 #32,040 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