Which to use
“gully” is a noun and “gusty” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,079
- “gully” frequency rank
- #47,664
- “gusty” frequency rank
- 72743
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | gully | gusty |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A trench, ravine or narrow channel which was worn by water flow, especially on a hillside. | Of wind: blowing in gusts; blustery; tempestuous. |
Where the eye mixes gully and gusty
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. gully and gusty follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: gully vs gusty
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gully is /ˈɡʌli/ while gusty is /ˈɡʌs.ti/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72743, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
gully is recorded at frequency rank #25,079, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈɡʌli/. gusty is at rank #47,664, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡʌs.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 72743, this pair ranks #42,009 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of gully vs gusty
Shared letters: guy. Private to "gully": l. Private to "gusty": st.
"gully" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "gusty" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "gully" for "gusty" ever safe?
Frequency check: "gully" vs "gusty" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "gully" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "gusty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #42,009 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "gully" and "gusty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gusty vs gutsy". 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 #42,009 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.