Which to use
“gold” is a noun and “good” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #692
- “gold” frequency rank
- #78
- “good” frequency rank
- 770
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | gold | good |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A heavy yellow elemental metal of great value, with atomic number 79 and symbol Au. | Of a person or an animal: |
Where the eye mixes gold and good
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: gold is /ɡəʊld/ while good is /ɡʊd/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “gold” becomes o in “good”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 770, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
gold is recorded at frequency rank #692, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡəʊld/. good is at rank #78, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ɡʊd/.
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 770, this pair ranks #528,816 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of gold vs good
Shared letters: dgo. Private to "gold": l. Private to "good": -.
"gold" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "good" · 4 letters · shape CVVC