English homophones

gods/guards

"gods" (#3,626 written frequency) beats "guards" (#4,160) in this 2-word /ɡɑdz/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.

Data vintage

Frequency splits the cluster

These 2 spellings keep the same /ɡɑdz/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "gods" leads at #3,626, with "guards" trailing at #4,160.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • No shared spelling stem: "gods" is 4 letters, "guards" is 6; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across gods, guards: dgs. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • gods

    4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC

    Inventory dgos · private o

  • guards

    6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVCCC

    Inventory adgrsu · private aru

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "gods" when you mean: plural of god
  • Write "guards" when you mean: plural of guard

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • godsgdos · ggods · godds · godss · gosd · ogds
  • guardsgaurds · gguards · guadrs · guardds · guardss · guarrds

Each spelling

gods

noun · /ɡɑdz/ · #3,626 frequency

plural of god

guards

noun · /ɡɑːdz/ · #4,160 frequency

plural of guard

Nearby English homophone groups

What to do next

You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (gods, guards). Here's where to go from here.

  • "gods" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #3,626 in English). Full entry
  • Among English homophone groups, a cluster of 2 spellings ranks #133 by size (1,007 groups in this vintage). Corpus statistics
  • Explore a nearby 2-spelling cluster: grey · gray. Nearby cluster
  • Each spelling in "gods, guards" has its own headword page with definition, IPA, and misspelling variants. First entry

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list