guest
/ɡɛst/
"guest" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“guest” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,579 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,579
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A recipient of hospitality, especially someone staying by invitation at the house of another.
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 | guest |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡɛst/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,579 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “guest” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for guest is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡɛst/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,579 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 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 guest, with forms such as "geust", "gguest", and "guesst". 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, "gut", "Gus", "guys", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gest, from Old Norse gestr, which replaced or was merged with Old English ġiest, both from Proto-Germanic *gastiz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰóstis (“stranger, guest, host, someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality”). C… The correct English form is guest, spelled G-U-E-S-T.
Definition
- 1A recipient of hospitality, especially someone staying by invitation at the house of another.
- 2A patron or customer in a hotel etc.
- 3An invited visitor or performer to an institution or to a broadcast.
- 4A user given temporary access to a system despite not having an account of their own.
- 5Any insect that lives in the nest of another without compulsion and usually not as a parasite.
- 6An inquiline.
Etymology
From Middle English gest, from Old Norse gestr, which replaced or was merged with Old English ġiest, both from Proto-Germanic *gastiz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰóstis (“stranger, guest, host, someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality”). Cognate with Bavarian Gåst (“guest”), Dutch gast (“guest”), German Gast (“guest”), Luxembourgish Gaascht (“guest”), Vilamovian gost (“guest”), Yiddish גאַסט (gast, “guest”), Danish gæst (“guest, visitor”), Faroese, Icelandic gestur (“guest”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk gjest (“guest”), Swedish gäst (“guest”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍃𐍄𐍃 (gasts, “guest”). Doublet of host, from Latin.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: geust,gguest,guesst,guestt,guets,guset,ugest
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of guest - 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 “guest”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-U-E-S-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɡɛst/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “gut” - see the side-by-side comparison. guest vs gut
- 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.