go vs gus, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#2,718
“go” frequency rank: #17,148
“gus” frequency rank: 19866
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	go	gus
Definition	Jeu de stratégie d’origine chinoise et qui se joue à deux joueurs.	Gars ; mec ; quidam.

Where the eye mixes go and gus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

gus

Visual trap between go and gus

A purely visual mix-up. go (\ɡo\) and gus (\ɡys\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19866, 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\. gus is at rank #17,148, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡys\.

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 19866, this pair ranks #371,147 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of go vs gus

Shared letters: g. Private to "go": o. Private to "gus": su.

"go" · 2 letters · shape CV · "gus" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "go" and "gus" be used interchangeably?

No. They are said differently (\ɡo\ versus \ɡys\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

In ordinary French text, does "go" or "gus" show up more?

"go" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,718 in our French list, against #17,148 for "gus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

Full dictionary entry for "go" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "gus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #371,147 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"go" and "gus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glue vs gus". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #371,147 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.