Which to use
“guild” is a noun and “guilty” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,923
- “guild” frequency rank
- #2,445
- “guilty” frequency rank
- 10368
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | guild | guilty |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 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. | Responsible for a dishonest act. |
Where the eye mixes guild and guilty
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses guild with guilty
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: guild is /ɡɪld/ while guilty is /ˈɡɪl.ti/. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10368, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
guild is recorded at frequency rank #7,923, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɡɪld/. guilty is at rank #2,445, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡɪl.ti/.
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 10368, this pair ranks #492,696 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of guild vs guilty
Shared letters: gilu. Private to "guild": d. Private to "guilty": ty.
"guild" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "guilty" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "guild" for "guilty" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "guild" or "guilty" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "guild" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "guilty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #492,696 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "guild" and "guilty" 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 #492,696 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.