gluevsgutWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#49,681
“glue” frequency rank
#45,089
“gut” frequency rank
94770
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature glue gut
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de gluer. Rituel chamanique consistant à communiquer avec les esprits.

Where the eye mixes glue and gut

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. glue runs 4 letters (CCVV) against gut's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
glue
3 ch
gut

Why the eye confuses glue with gut

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: glue is \ɡly\ while gut is \ɡyt\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 94770, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

glue is recorded at frequency rank #49,681, classified as averb, pronounced \ɡly\. gut is at rank #45,089, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡyt\.

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 94770, this pair ranks #1,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of glue vs gut

Shared letters: gu. Private to "glue": el. Private to "gut": t.

"glue" · 4 letters · shape CCVV  ·  "gut" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • glue ← gglue · gleu · gllue · gule · lgue

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "glue" and "gut" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "glue" is a verb and "gut" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "glue" or "gut" show up more?
"gut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #45,089 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "glue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "glue" and "gut" 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 #1,426 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