guckvsguteWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#3,451
“guck” frequency rank
#226
“gute” frequency rank
3677
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guck gute
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs gucken Nominativ Singular Femininum Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs gut

Where the eye mixes guck and gute

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
guck
4 ch
gute

Why the eye confuses guck with gute

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: guck is [ɡʊk] while gute is [ˈɡuːtə]. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3677, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guck is recorded at frequency rank #3,451, classified as averb, pronounced [ɡʊk]. gute is at rank #226, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈɡuːtə].

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 3677, this pair ranks #1,999,647 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of guck vs gute

Shared letters: gu. Private to "guck": ck. Private to "gute": et.

"guck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "gute" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guckgcuk · gguck · gucck · guckk · gukc · ugck
  • guteggute · gtue · guet · gutte · ugte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "guck" for "gute" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "guck" is a verb and "gute" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "guck" vs "gute" - which ranks higher?
"gute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #226 in our German list, against #3,451 for "guck". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "guck" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gute" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,999,647 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guck" and "gute" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guck vs guckte". 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 #1,999,647 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list