guilt
/ɡɪlt/noun, verb
guilt is spelled G-U-I-L-T: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 5,778th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, guilt means “Responsibility for wrongdoing” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of guilt is guilts.
How many letters and syllables are in guilt?
| Letters | 5: G-U-I-L-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 13 times per million words; the 5,778th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is guilt?
Guilt appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 5,778th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce guilt?
- US /ɡɪlt/
Guilt has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-guilt.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with guilt
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: gilt (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: gilt.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with guilt?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as guilt from its last stressed vowel (/ɪlt/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of guilt
- guilts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- guilting participle, present
- guilted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does guilt mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Responsibility for wrongdoing.
- 2
The state of having been found guilty or admitted guilt in legal proceedings.
- 3
Regret for having done wrong.
verb
- 1
informalTo cause someone to feel guilt, particularly in order to influence their behaviour.
He didn't want to do it, but his wife guilted him into it.
- 2
obsoleteTo commit offenses; act criminally.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Guilt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | culpabilité , sentiment de culpabilité |
| German | Schuld , Schuldgefühl |
| Portuguese | culpa |
| Spanish | culpa , remordimiento , culpabilidad , hacer sentir culpable |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does guilt come from?
From Middle English gilt, gult, from Old English gylt (“guilt, sin, offense, crime, fault”), of obscure origin. Possibly related with Old English ġieldan (“to pay, requite, punish”) (whence yield), from Proto-West Germanic *guldijā (whence Middle High German gülte (“debt, fee, financial duty”), Middle Low German gülde, German Gülte), from Proto-West Germanic *geldan (“to pay for”), from Proto-Germanic *geldaną (“to pay”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).