Which to use
“gunned” is a verb and “gutted” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #24,774
- “gunned” frequency rank
- #17,153
- “gutted” frequency rank
- 41927
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | gunned | gutted |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of gun | Eviscerated. |
Where the eye mixes gunned and gutted
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. gunned and gutted follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between gunned and gutted
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gunned is /ɡʌnd/ while gutted is /ˈɡʌtɪd/. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41927, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
gunned is recorded at frequency rank #24,774, classified as averb, pronounced /ɡʌnd/. gutted is at rank #17,153, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡʌtɪd/.
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 41927, this pair ranks #253,873 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of gunned vs gutted
Shared letters: degu. Private to "gunned": n. Private to "gutted": t.
"gunned" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "gutted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "gunned" for "gutted" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "gunned" or "gutted" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "gunned" and "gutted" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "gunned" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "gutted" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #253,873 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "gunned" and "gutted" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gunned vs gunnery". 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 #253,873 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.