gorgevsgorgonTell them apart

Which to use

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

#17,149
“gorge” frequency rank
#45,951
“gorgon” frequency rank
63100
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gorge gorgon
Definition The front aspect of the neck; the outside of the throat. A vicious female monster from Greek mythology with sharp fangs and hair of living, venomous snakes. One of the three sisters: Medusa, Stheno and Euryale

Where the eye mixes gorge and gorgon

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

5 ch
gorge
6 ch
gorgon

Why the eye confuses gorge with gorgon

A purely visual mix-up. gorge (/ɡɔːdʒ/) and gorgon (/ˈɡɔːrɡən/) 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 63100, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gorge is recorded at frequency rank #17,149, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɔːdʒ/. gorgon is at rank #45,951, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈɡɔːrɡən/.

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 63100, this pair ranks #84,875 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gorge vs gorgon

Shared letters: gor. Private to "gorge": e. Private to "gorgon": n.

"gorge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "gorgon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gorge ← ggorge · gogre · goreg · gorgge · gorrge · groge · ogrge
  • gorgon ← ggorgon · gogron · gorggon · gorgno · gorgonn · gorogn · gorrgon · grogon

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gorge" and "gorgon" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ɡɔːdʒ/ versus /ˈɡɔːrɡən/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "gorge" or "gorgon" show up more?
"gorge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,149 in our English list, against #45,951 for "gorgon". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gorge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gorgon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #84,875 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gorge" and "gorgon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Gogol vs gorgon". 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 #84,875 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