gum
/ɡʌm/
"gum" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gum” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,799 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,799
- frequency rank, English
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The flesh around the teeth.
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 | gum |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡʌm/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #7,799 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “gum” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gum is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡʌm/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,799 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The flesh around the teeth.".
Zero misspellings are on record for gum in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "guy", "gun", "gym", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gom, gome, gomme, goome, gum, gume, gumme, from Old English gōma (“palate”), from Proto-West Germanic *gōmō, from Proto-Germanic *gaumô, *gōmô (“palate”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂- (“to gape, yawn”). Cognates Cognate with Cimbrian… The correct English form is gum, spelled G-U-M.
Definition
- 1The flesh around the teeth.
Etymology
From Middle English gom, gome, gomme, goome, gum, gume, gumme, from Old English gōma (“palate”), from Proto-West Germanic *gōmō, from Proto-Germanic *gaumô, *gōmô (“palate”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂- (“to gape, yawn”). Cognates Cognate with Cimbrian gaumo (“palate”), German Gaum, Gaumen (“palate”), Luxembourgish Gomm, Gumm (“palate”), Yiddish גומען (gumen, “palate”), Danish gumme (“gums”), Icelandic gómur (“gum”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish gom (“palate”); also Latin hio (“to gape, yawn”), Ancient Greek χάσκω (kháskō, “to gape, yawn”), Lithuanian gomurỹs (“palate”), Bulgarian зе́я (zéja, “to gape”), Czech zát, zet (“to gape”), Polish ziać (“to pant”), Russian зия́ть (zijátʹ, “to gape, yawn”), Serbo-Croatian зи́јати, zíjati (“to gape, yawn”), Ukrainian зя́яти (zjájaty, “to gape”), Tocharian A koy- (“mouth”), Tocharian B koyn (“mouth”). More at yawn.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
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
How do you spell "gum"?
What does "gum" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "gum"?
How do you pronounce "gum"?
What is the origin of the word "gum"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “gum”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-U-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɡʌm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “guy” - see the side-by-side comparison. gum vs guy
- 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.