granvsgrayTell them apart

Quick tell: gran is a adjective, gray is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#10,731
“gran” frequency rank
#10,365
“gray” frequency rank
21096
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gran gray
Definition grão/grã, forma reduzida de grande; usa-se somente anteposto ao substantivo. unidade no Sistema Internacional de medidas, representado por Gy, que representa a quantidade de energia de radiação ionizante absorvida (ou dose) por unidade de massa, e é definido como a quantidade que deposita 1 joule (J) de energia por quilograma (kg) do meio absorvedor, sendo 1 Gy = 1 J/kg

Letter map: gran vs gray

Shared letters muted; letters that set gran and gray apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
gran
4 ch
gray

Part-of-speech tell for gran / gray

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: gran is anadjective and grayanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - n in “gran” becomes y in “gray”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21096, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gran is recorded at frequency rank #10,731, classified as anadj. gray is at rank #10,365, tagged as anoun, pronounced /'greɪ/.

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 21096, this pair ranks #49,255 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gran vs gray

Shared letters: agr. Private to "gran": n. Private to "gray": y.

"gran" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "gray" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • grangarn · ggran · grann · grna · grran · rgan
  • graygary · ggray · grayy · grray · grya · rgay

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gran" and "gray" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gran" is an adjective and "gray" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "gran" or "gray"?
"gray" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,365 in our Portuguese list, against #10,731 for "gran". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "gran" vs "gray" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gran" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gray" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,255 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gran" and "gray" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gran vs grip". 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 #49,255 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