govsgobeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“go” and “gobe” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#2,718
“go” frequency rank
#47,359
“gobe” frequency rank
50077
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature go gobe
Definition Jeu de stratégie d’origine chinoise et qui se joue à deux joueurs. Variante orthographique de gobbe.

Where the eye mixes go and gobe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

2 ch
go
4 ch
gobe

Look-alike desk: go vs gobe

A purely visual mix-up. go (\ɡo\) and gobe (\ɡɔb\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “go” sits inside “gobe”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50077, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

go is recorded at frequency rank #2,718, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡo\. gobe is at rank #47,359, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔb\.

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 50077, this pair ranks #165,501 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of go vs gobe

Shared letters: go. Private to "go": -. Private to "gobe": be.

"go" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "gobe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gobegboe · ggobe · gobbe · goeb · ogbe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "go" for "gobe" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡo\ versus \ɡɔb\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "go" vs "gobe" - which ranks higher?
"go" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,718 in our French list, against #47,359 for "gobe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "go" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gobe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #165,501 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "go" and "gobe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glue vs gobe". 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 #165,501 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