gut
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "gut", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "gut" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "gut" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
gut is aEnglishnoun. It means: The alimentary canal, especially the intestine. Pronounced /ɡʌt/. It ranks #6,915 in English word frequency. Often confused with guy and gym.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gut |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡʌt/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #6,915 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for gut is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡʌt/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,915 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for gut in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "guy", "gym", "GYN", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gut, gutte, gotte, from Old English gutt (usually in plural guttas (“guts, entrails”)), from Proto-Germanic *gut-, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰewd- (“to pour”). Related to English gote (“drain”), Old English ġēotan (“to pour”). More at g… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is gut, spelled G-U-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The alimentary canal, especially the intestine.
- 2The abdomen of a person, especially one that is enlarged.
- 3The intestines of an animal used to make strings of a tennis racket or violin, etc.
- 4A person's emotional, visceral self.
- 5A class that is not demanding or challenging.
- 6A narrow passage of water.
- 7The sac of silk taken from a silkworm when ready to spin its cocoon, for the purpose of drawing it out into a thread. When dry, it is exceedingly strong, and is used as the snood of a fishing line.
Etymology
From Middle English gut, gutte, gotte, from Old English gutt (usually in plural guttas (“guts, entrails”)), from Proto-Germanic *gut-, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰewd- (“to pour”). Related to English gote (“drain”), Old English ġēotan (“to pour”). More at gote, yote. The verb is from Middle English gutten, gotten (“to gut”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #6,915 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: