guidevsguiónWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“guide” and “guión” are a confusable Spanish pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#26,070
“guide” frequency rank
#7,566
“guión” frequency rank
33636
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guide guión
Definition Guía. Grafía anticuada de guion.

Where the eye mixes guide and guión

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
guide
5 ch
guión

Visual trap between guide and guión

A purely visual mix-up. guide (/gaɪd/) and guión ([ˈgjõn]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33636, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guide is recorded at frequency rank #26,070, classified as anoun, pronounced /gaɪd/. guión is at rank #7,566, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈgjõn].

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 33636, this pair ranks #195,738 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of guide vs guión

Shared letters: giu. Private to "guide": de. Private to "guión": .

"guide" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "guión" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guidegguide · giude · gudie · guidde · guied · ugide

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "guide" for "guión" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/gaɪd/ versus [ˈgjõn]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "guide" or "guión" show up more?
"guión" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,566 in our Spanish list, against #26,070 for "guide". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "guide" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guión" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #195,738 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guide" and "guión" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "guide vs guild". 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 #195,738 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