gorge
/ɡɔːdʒ/
"gorge" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gorge” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #17,149 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #17,149
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The front aspect of the neck; the outside of the throat.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gorge |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɔːdʒ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #17,149 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gorge” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gorge is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡɔːdʒ/. Corpus data places it at rank #17,149 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for gorge, with forms such as "ggorge", "gogre", and "goreg". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "GRE", "gory", "gove", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gorge (“esophagus, gullet; throat; bird's crop; food in a hawk's crop; food or drink that has been eaten”), a borrowing from Old French gorge (“throat”) (modern French gorge (“throat; breast”)), from Vulgar Latin *gorga, *gurga, from Lat… The correct English form is gorge, spelled G-O-R-G-E.
Definition
- 1The front aspect of the neck; the outside of the throat.
- 2The inside of the throat; the esophagus, the gullet; (falconry, specifically) the crop or gizzard of a hawk.
- 3The throat of a flower.
- 4Food that has been taken into the gullet or the stomach, particularly if it is regurgitated or vomited out.
- 5A choking or filling of a channel or passage by an obstruction; the obstruction itself.
- 6A concave moulding; a cavetto.
- 7The rearward side of an outwork, a bastion, or a fort, often open, or not protected against artillery; a narrow entry passage into the outwork of an enclosed fortification.
- 8A primitive device used instead of a hook to catch fish, consisting of an object that is easy to swallow but difficult to eject or loosen, such as a piece of bone or stone pointed at each end and attached in the middle to a line.
- 9A deep, narrow passage with steep, rocky sides, particularly one with a stream running through it; a ravine.
- 10The groove of a pulley.
- 11A whirlpool used as a heraldic charge.
Etymology
From Middle English gorge (“esophagus, gullet; throat; bird's crop; food in a hawk's crop; food or drink that has been eaten”), a borrowing from Old French gorge (“throat”) (modern French gorge (“throat; breast”)), from Vulgar Latin *gorga, *gurga, from Latin gurges (“eddy, whirlpool; gulf; sea”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerh₃- (“to devour, swallow; to eat”). The English word is cognate with Galician gorxa (“throat”), Italian gorga, gorgia (“gorge, ravine; (obsolete) throat”), Occitan gorga, gorja, Portuguese gorja (“gullet, throat; gorge”), Spanish gorja (“gullet, throat; gorge”). Doublet of gour and gurges.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ggorge,gogre,goreg,gorgge,gorrge,groge,ogrge
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of gorge - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “gorge”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-O-R-G-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɡɔːdʒ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “GRE” - see the side-by-side comparison. gorge vs GRE
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.