guidedvsguildConfusable pair

Quick tell: guided is a verb, guild is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“guided” is a verb and “guild” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,474
“guided” frequency rank
#7,923
“guild” frequency rank
14397
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guided guild
Definition simple past and past participle of guide A group or association mainly of tradespeople made up of merchants, craftspeople, or artisans, particularly in the Middle Ages, established to oversee and protect their specific commercial interests and to provide mutual aid.

Where the eye mixes guided and guild

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
guided
5 ch
guild

Look-alike desk: guided vs guild

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: guided is /ˈɡaɪdɪd/ while guild is /ɡɪld/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14397, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guided is recorded at frequency rank #6,474, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈɡaɪdɪd/. guild is at rank #7,923, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡɪld/.

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 14397, this pair ranks #470,277 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of guided vs guild

Shared letters: dgiu. Private to "guided": e. Private to "guild": l.

"guided" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "guild" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guidedgguided · giuded · gudied · guidded · guidedd · guiedd · ugided
  • guildgguild · giuld · guidl · guildd · guilld · gulid · ugild

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "guided" for "guild" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "guided" is a verb and "guild" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "guided" or "guild"?
"guided" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,474 in our English list, against #7,923 for "guild". 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 "guided" and "guild" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "guided" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guild" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #470,277 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guided" and "guild" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guild vs gurl". 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 #470,277 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