Which to use
“garde” and “gourde” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #613
- “garde” frequency rank
- #26,747
- “gourde” frequency rank
- 27360
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | garde | gourde |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Soldat effectuant une garde, chargé de la protection d’une personne, de la surveillance d’un lieu. | Plante de la famille des cucurbitacées. |
Where the eye mixes garde and gourde
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses garde with gourde
A purely visual mix-up. garde (\ɡaʁd\) and gourde (\ɡuʁd\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27360, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
garde is recorded at frequency rank #613, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡaʁd\. gourde is at rank #26,747, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡuʁd\.
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 27360, this pair ranks #329,484 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of garde vs gourde
Shared letters: degr. Private to "garde": a. Private to "gourde": ou.
"garde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "gourde" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "garde" for "gourde" ever safe?
Which is more common, "garde" or "gourde"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "garde" and "gourde" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "garde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "gourde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #329,484 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "garde" and "gourde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gourde vs gousse". 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 #329,484 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.