guildvsgullsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#7,923
“guild” frequency rank
#28,939
“gulls” frequency rank
36862
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guild gulls
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. plural of gull

Where the eye mixes guild and gulls

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

5 ch
guild
5 ch
gulls

Visual trap between guild and gulls

A purely visual mix-up. guild (/ɡɪld/) and gulls (/ɡʌlz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36862, 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/. gulls is at rank #28,939, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡʌlz/.

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 36862, this pair ranks #299,493 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of guild vs gulls

Shared letters: glu. Private to "guild": di. Private to "gulls": s.

"guild" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "gulls" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guildgguild · giuld · guidl · guildd · guilld · gulid · ugild
  • gullsggulls · gluls · gullss · guls · gulsl · uglls

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "guild" and "gulls" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/ɡɪld/ versus /ɡʌlz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "guild" or "gulls"?
"guild" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,923 in our English list, against #28,939 for "gulls". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "guild" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gulls" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #299,493 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guild" and "gulls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gilly vs gulls". 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 #299,493 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