English homophones
gorilla/guerrilla
"gorilla" (#12,613 written frequency) beats "guerrilla" (#17,623) in this 2-word /ɡəˈɹɪl.ə/ cluster. Size rank #133 of 1,007 English groups.
Data vintage
Frequency splits the cluster
These 2 spellings keep the same /ɡəˈɹɪl.ə/ reading, but written frequency splits them hard: "gorilla" leads at #12,613, with "guerrilla" trailing at #17,623.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "gorilla" is 7 letters, "guerrilla" is 9; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across gorilla, guerrilla: agilr. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
gorilla
7 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVCVCCV
Inventory agilor · private o
guerrilla
9 letters · 4 vowels · shape CVVCCVCCV
Inventory aegilru · private eu
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "gorilla" when you mean: An ape of the genus Gorilla; endemic to the forests of Central Africa and typified by superlative physical size and strength in relation …
- Write "guerrilla" when you mean: A soldier in a small independent group, fighting against the government or regular forces by surprise raids.
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
Each spelling
noun · /ɡəˈɹɪl.ə/ · #12,613 frequency
An ape of the genus Gorilla; endemic to the forests of Central Africa and typified by superlative physical size and strength in relation to other primates.
noun · /ɡəˈɹɪlə/ · #17,623 frequency
A soldier in a small independent group, fighting against the government or regular forces by surprise raids.
Nearby English homophone groups
What to do next
You've reviewed the 2-spelling cluster (gorilla, guerrilla). Here's where to go from here.
- "gorilla" is the most frequent headword in this 2-spelling cluster (rank #12,613 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: Ghana · garner. Nearby cluster
- Each spelling in "gorilla, guerrilla" 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.