guidesvsMaryConfusable pair

Quick tell: guides is a noun, Mary is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“guides” is a noun and “Mary” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,409
“guides” frequency rank
#4,536
“Mary” frequency rank
43945
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guides Mary
Definition Plural des Substantivs guide weiblicher Vorname

Letter map: guides vs Mary

Shared letters muted; letters that set guides and Mary apart highlighted. No shared letter run. guides runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against Mary's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
guides
4 ch
Mary

Grammar separator: guides vs Mary

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: guides is anoun and Maryaname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43945, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guides is recorded at frequency rank #39,409, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. Mary is at rank #4,536, tagged as aname, pronounced […].

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 43945, this pair ranks #1,402,035 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of guides vs Mary

Shared letters: none. Private to "guides": degisu. Private to "Mary": amry.

"guides" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "Mary" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guidesgguides · giudes · gudies · guiddes · guidess · guidse · guieds · ugides
  • Maryamry · marry · maryy · mmary · mray

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "guides" and "Mary" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "guides" is a noun and "Mary" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "guides" or "Mary" show up more?
"Mary" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,536 in our German list, against #39,409 for "guides". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "guides" and "Mary". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "guides" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mary" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,402,035 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guides" and "Mary" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guides vs puzzles". 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 #1,402,035 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