goldsvsguildsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“golds” and “guilds” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#24,460
“golds” frequency rank
#26,102
“guilds” frequency rank
50562
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature golds guilds
Definition plural of gold plural of guild

Where the eye mixes golds and guilds

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. golds runs 5 letters (CVCCC) against guilds's 6 (CVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
golds
6 ch
guilds

Visual trap between golds and guilds

A purely visual mix-up. golds (/ɡəʊldz/) and guilds (/ɡɪldz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50562, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

golds is recorded at frequency rank #24,460, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡəʊldz/. guilds is at rank #26,102, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡɪldz/.

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 50562, this pair ranks #173,166 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of golds vs guilds

Shared letters: dgls. Private to "golds": o. Private to "guilds": iu.

"golds" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "guilds" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • golds ← ggolds · glods · godls · goldds · goldss · gollds · golsd · oglds
  • guilds ← gguilds · giulds · guidls · guildds · guildss · guillds · guilsd · gulids

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "golds" for "guilds" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɡəʊldz/ versus /ɡɪldz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "golds" or "guilds" show up more?
"golds" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,460 in our English list, against #26,102 for "guilds". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "golds" and "guilds" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "golds" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guilds" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,166 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "golds" and "guilds" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gilda vs guilds". 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 #173,166 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list