gere vs guère, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“gere” is a noun and “guère” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,804
“gere” frequency rank: #3,924
“guère” frequency rank: 45728
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	gere	guère
Definition	Avertisseur, corne, klaxon.	Presque pas ; presque rien.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set gere and guère apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

gere

5 ch

guère

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gere is \ɡe.re\ while guère is \ɡɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45728, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gere is recorded at frequency rank #41,804, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡe.re\. guère is at rank #3,924, tagged as anadv, pronounced \ɡɛʁ\.

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 45728, this pair ranks #200,479 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gere vs guère

Shared letters: egr. Private to "gere": -. Private to "guère": uè.

"gere" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "guère" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

gere ← egre · geer · ggere · gree

Frequency comparison

gere#41,804

guère#3,924

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gere" and "guère" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gere" is a noun and "guère" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "gere" or "guère"?

"guère" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,924 in our French list, against #41,804 for "gere". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering gere vs guère

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “gere”; for an adverb, it's “guère”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “gere” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable