guvsgunsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: gu is a pronoun, guns is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gu” is a pronoun and “guns” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#18,851
“gu” frequency rank
#30,927
“guns” frequency rank
49778
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gu guns
Definition Nosotros, nosotras Forma del plural de gun.

Where the eye mixes gu and guns

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
gu
4 ch
guns

Why the eye confuses gu with guns

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gu is /gu/ while guns is /ɡʌnz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “gu” sits inside “guns”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49778, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gu is recorded at frequency rank #18,851, classified as apron, pronounced /gu/. guns is at rank #30,927, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ɡʌnz/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 49778, this pair ranks #106,878 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gu vs guns

Shared letters: gu. Private to "gu": -. Private to "guns": ns.

"gu" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "guns" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gunsgguns · gnus · gunns · gunss · gusn · ugns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gu" for "guns" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gu" is a pronoun and "guns" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "gu" or "guns" show up more?
"gu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,851 in our Spanish list, against #30,927 for "guns". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "gu" and "guns" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guns" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #106,878 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gu" and "guns" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guan vs guns". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #106,878 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list