Gus
/ɡʌs/
"gus" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“Gus” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #12,251) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #12,251
- frequency rank, English
- 2,313
- “G” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A diminutive of the male given name Augustus.
Corpus desk
Index EN-gus · Gus · English
Gus · rank #12,251 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #12,251
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,313
- PHOTO-FINISH goodnight
Nearest frequency peer: goodnight (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “Gus”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- Geoffrey
Geoffrey
87,752 corpus weight
- goodnight
goodnight
87,751 corpus weight
- Gus
Gus
87,750 corpus weight
- handmade
handmade
87,749 corpus weight
- Hartford
Hartford
87,748 corpus weight
- Hawkins
Hawkins
87,747 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “Gus” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | Gus |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | /ɡʌs/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #12,251 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “Gus”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for Gus is neighbouring look-alikes ("guy", "gym", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun pronounced /ɡʌs/. Frequency #12,251 among 2,313 “G” headwords. Gloss: "A diminutive of the male given name Augustus.".
Gus has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "guy", "gym", "gut", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Clipping of Augustus. From the Latin name Augustus. The correct English form is Gus, spelled G-U-S.
Definition
- 1A diminutive of the male given name Augustus.
Etymology
Clipping of Augustus. From the Latin name Augustus.
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 "Gus"?
What does "Gus" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "Gus"?
How do you pronounce "Gus"?
What is the origin of the word "Gus"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Gus", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).