goodvsgoofyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#78
“good” frequency rank
#13,523
“goofy” frequency rank
13601
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature good goofy
Definition Of a person or an animal: silly, quirky

Where the eye mixes good and goofy

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
good
5 ch
goofy

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. good (/ɡʊd/) and goofy (/ˈɡuːfi/) 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 13601, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

good is recorded at frequency rank #78, classified as anadj, pronounced /ɡʊd/. goofy is at rank #13,523, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡuːfi/.

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 13601, this pair ranks #474,833 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of good vs goofy

Shared letters: go. Private to "good": d. Private to "goofy": fy.

"good" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "goofy" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • goodggood · godo · goodd · ogod
  • goofyggoofy · gofoy · gofy · gooffy · goofyy · gooyf · ogofy

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "good" and "goofy" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɡʊd/ versus /ˈɡuːfi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "good" or "goofy"?
"good" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #78 in our English list, against #13,523 for "goofy". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list