govsgodsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#2,718
“go” frequency rank
#47,920
“gods” frequency rank
50638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature go gods
Definition Jeu de stratégie d’origine chinoise et qui se joue à deux joueurs. Pluriel de god.

Where the eye mixes go and gods

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

2 ch
go
4 ch
gods

Visual trap between go and gods

A purely visual mix-up. go (\ɡo\) and gods (\ˈɡɑdz\) 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 “gods”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50638, 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\. gods is at rank #47,920, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈɡɑdz\.

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 50638, this pair ranks #161,085 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of go vs gods

Shared letters: go. Private to "go": -. Private to "gods": ds.

"go" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "gods" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gods ← gdos · ggods · godds · godss · gosd · ogds

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "go" for "gods" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡo\ versus \ˈɡɑdz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "go" or "gods" show up more?
"go" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,718 in our French list, against #47,920 for "gods". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "go" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gods" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #161,085 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "go" and "gods" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gobe vs gods". 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 #161,085 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