guy
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "guy", 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 "guy" 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 "guy" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
guy is aEnglishnoun. It means: An effigy of a man burned on a bonfire on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot (5th November). Pronounced /ɡæ/. It ranks #387 in English word frequency. Often confused with gym and GYN.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | guy |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɡæ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #387 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for guy is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɡæ/. Corpus data places it at rank #387 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for guy 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, "gym", "GYN", "guys", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Coined by semantic widening from the name of Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), an English Catholic executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot, from Old French Gui, a form of Proto-Germanic *Wido, a short form of names beginning with the element witu "wood" from Prot… 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 guy, spelled G-U-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1An effigy of a man burned on a bonfire on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot (5th November).
- 2A person of eccentric appearance or dress; a "fright".
- 3A man or boy; a fellow.
- 4A person (see usage notes).
- 5Anything seen to have character and personality, such as an animal or a toy.
- 6dude, Buster, Mack, fella, bud, man.
- 7Thing, item (term that can be used to refer to any entity)
Etymology
Coined by semantic widening from the name of Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), an English Catholic executed for his role in the Gunpowder Plot, from Old French Gui, a form of Proto-Germanic *Wido, a short form of names beginning with the element witu "wood" from Proto-Germanic *widuz, such as Witold and Widukind. Cognate with Italian Guido.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #387 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: