guildvsgulpWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#7,923
“guild” frequency rank
#31,584
“gulp” frequency rank
39507
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guild gulp
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. The usual amount swallowed.

Where the eye mixes guild and gulp

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

5 ch
guild
4 ch
gulp

Visual trap between guild and gulp

A purely visual mix-up. guild (/ɡɪld/) and gulp (/ɡʌlp/) 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 39507, 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/. gulp is at rank #31,584, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡʌlp/.

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 39507, this pair ranks #276,037 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of guild vs gulp

Shared letters: glu. Private to "guild": di. Private to "gulp": p.

"guild" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "gulp" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guildgguild · giuld · guidl · guildd · guilld · gulid · ugild
  • gulpggulp · glup · gullp · gulpp · gupl · uglp

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "guild" for "gulp" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ɡɪld/ versus /ɡʌlp/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "guild" or "gulp" show up more?
"guild" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,923 in our English list, against #31,584 for "gulp". 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 "guild" and "gulp" 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 "gulp" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #276,037 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guild" and "gulp" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "goop vs gulp". 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 #276,037 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