gulvsgullsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#34,905
“gul” frequency rank
#28,939
“gulls” frequency rank
63844
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gul gulls
Definition Any medallionlike design on a Central or West Asian rug. plural of gull

Letter map: gul vs gulls

Shared letters muted; letters that set gul and gulls apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. gul runs 3 letters (CVC) against gulls's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
gul
5 ch
gulls

Spelling & dictionary notes on gul vs gulls

gul and gulls are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “gul” sits inside “gulls”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63844, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gul is recorded at frequency rank #34,905, classified as anoun. 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 63844, this pair ranks #80,788 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gul vs gulls

Shared letters: glu. Private to "gul": -. Private to "gulls": s.

"gul" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "gulls" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gulls ← ggulls · gluls · gullss · guls · gulsl · uglls

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gul" and "gulls" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “gul” sits inside “gulls”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "gul" vs "gulls" - which ranks higher?
"gulls" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,939 in our English list, against #34,905 for "gul". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "gul" vs "gulls" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gul" 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 #80,788 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gul" and "gulls" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gib vs gul". 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 #80,788 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