gout
/ɡaʊt/
"gout" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gout” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #26,806 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #26,806
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An extremely painful inflammation of joints, especially of the big toe, caused by a metabolic defect resulting in the accumulation of uric acid in the blood and the deposition of urates around the ...
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 | gout |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡaʊt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #26,806 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gout” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gout is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡaʊt/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,806 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for gout, with forms such as "ggout", "gotu", and "goutt". 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, "GU", "guy", "gun", 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 goute, from Old French gote, gute, from Latin gutta (“drop”). Compare Spanish gota (“drop, droplet”). Doublet of goutte and gutta. The sense shift derived from humorism and "the notion of the 'dropping' of a morbid material from the bloo… The correct English form is gout, spelled G-O-U-T.
Definition
- 1An extremely painful inflammation of joints, especially of the big toe, caused by a metabolic defect resulting in the accumulation of uric acid in the blood and the deposition of urates around the joints.
- 2A drop; a spurt or splotch.
- 3A disease of wheat and cornstalks, caused by insect larvae.
Etymology
From Middle English goute, from Old French gote, gute, from Latin gutta (“drop”). Compare Spanish gota (“drop, droplet”). Doublet of goutte and gutta. The sense shift derived from humorism and "the notion of the 'dropping' of a morbid material from the blood in and around the joints".
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ggout,gotu,goutt,guot,ogut
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of gout - 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 “gout”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-O-U-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɡaʊt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “GU” - see the side-by-side comparison. gout vs GU
- 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.