govsguyWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#2,718
“go” frequency rank
#3,263
“guy” frequency rank
5981
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature go guy
Definition Jeu de stratégie d’origine chinoise et qui se joue à deux joueurs. Mec, gars, type.

Where the eye mixes go and guy

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

2 ch
go
3 ch
guy

Why the eye confuses go with guy

A purely visual mix-up. go (\ɡo\) and guy (\ˈɡaɪ\) 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 5981, 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\. guy is at rank #3,263, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈɡaɪ\.

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 5981, this pair ranks #427,507 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of go vs guy

Shared letters: g. Private to "go": o. Private to "guy": uy.

"go" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "guy" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "go" and "guy" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɡo\ versus \ˈɡaɪ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "go" or "guy" show up more?
"go" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,718 in our French list, against #3,263 for "guy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "guy" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #427,507 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "go" and "guy" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glue vs guy". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #427,507 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