Which to use
“gusty” and “gutsy” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #47,664
- “gusty” frequency rank
- #40,272
- “gutsy” frequency rank
- 87936
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | gusty | gutsy |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Of wind: blowing in gusts; blustery; tempestuous. | Marked by courage, determination or boldness in the face of difficulties or danger; having guts. |
Where the eye mixes gusty and gutsy
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. gusty and gutsy follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between gusty and gutsy
A purely visual mix-up. gusty (/ˈɡʌs.ti/) and gutsy (/ˈɡʌt.si/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (st ↔ ts) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 87936, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
gusty is recorded at frequency rank #47,664, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡʌs.ti/. gutsy is at rank #40,272, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈɡʌt.si/.
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 87936, this pair ranks #6,976 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of gusty vs gutsy
Shared letters: gstuy. Private to "gusty": -. Private to "gutsy": -.
"gusty" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "gutsy" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "gusty" and "gutsy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "gusty" or "gutsy"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "gusty" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "gutsy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #6,976 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "gusty" and "gutsy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gush vs gusty". 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 #6,976 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.