gazevsglueConfusable pair

Quick tell: gaze is a noun, glue is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gaze” is a noun and “glue” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,079
“gaze” frequency rank
#49,681
“glue” frequency rank
76760
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gaze glue
Definition Étoffe légère et transparente, faite de soie ou de fil d’or, ou d’argent. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de gluer.

Where the eye mixes gaze and glue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. gaze (CVCV) and glue (CCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
gaze
4 ch
glue

Look-alike desk: gaze vs glue

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gaze is \ɡaz\ while glue is \ɡly\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76760, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gaze is recorded at frequency rank #27,079, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡaz\. glue is at rank #49,681, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɡly\.

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 76760, this pair ranks #30,233 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gaze vs glue

Shared letters: eg. Private to "gaze": az. Private to "glue": lu.

"gaze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "glue" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gaze ← agze · gaez · gazze · ggaze · gzae
  • glue ← gglue · gleu · gllue · gule · lgue

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gaze" for "glue" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gaze" is a noun and "glue" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "gaze" or "glue" show up more?
"gaze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,079 in our French list, against #49,681 for "glue". 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 "gaze" and "glue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gaze" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "glue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,233 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gaze" and "glue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glane vs glue". 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 #30,233 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list