Which to use
“glad” is an adjective and “gold” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,342
- “glad” frequency rank
- #692
- “gold” frequency rank
- 2034
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | glad | gold |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pleased; happy; gratified. | A heavy yellow elemental metal of great value, with atomic number 79 and symbol Au. |
Where the eye mixes glad and gold
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: glad is /ɡlæd/ while gold is /ɡəʊld/. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2034, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
glad is recorded at frequency rank #1,342, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɡlæd/. gold is at rank #692, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡəʊld/.
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 2034, this pair ranks #526,021 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of glad vs gold
Shared letters: dgl. Private to "glad": a. Private to "gold": o.
"glad" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "gold" · 4 letters · shape CVCC