guitarvsrunningWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: guitar is a noun, running is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“guitar” is a noun and “running” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,220
“guitar” frequency rank
#15,470
“running” frequency rank
50690
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guitar running
Definition Gitarre; Musikintrument mit 6 Saiten Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs run

Letter map: guitar vs running

Shared letters muted; letters that set guitar and running apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. guitar runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against running's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
guitar
7 ch
running

Role in the sentence - guitar and running

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: guitar is anoun and runningaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50690, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guitar is recorded at frequency rank #35,220, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. running is at rank #15,470, tagged as averb, 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 50690, this pair ranks #1,164,209 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of guitar vs running

Shared letters: giru. Private to "guitar": at. Private to "running": n.

"guitar" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "running" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guitar ← gguitar · giutar · guiatr · guitarr · guitra · guittar · gutiar · ugitar
  • running ← rnuning · rrunning · runing · runinng · runnign · runningg · runninng · runnnig

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "guitar" for "running" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "guitar" is a noun and "running" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "guitar" or "running" show up more?
"running" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,470 in our German list, against #35,220 for "guitar". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "guitar" and "running". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "guitar" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "running" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,164,209 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guitar" and "running" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guitar 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 #1,164,209 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