golemvsgouletWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#44,479
“golem” frequency rank
#33,278
“goulet” frequency rank
77757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature golem goulet
Definition Dans les légendes juives du Moyen Âge, figure d’argile auquel un rabbin donnait vie pour sauver la communauté des pogroms en inscrivant sur le front de ladite figure le mot אמת, emeth (« vérité ») et que l’on tuait en effaçant la première lettre du mot, formant ainsi le mot מת, meth (« mort »). Entrée étroite d’un port, d’une rade.

Where the eye mixes golem and goulet

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. golem runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against goulet's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
golem
6 ch
goulet

Visual trap between golem and goulet

A purely visual mix-up. golem (\ɡɔ.lɛm\) and goulet (\ɡu.lɛ\) 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 77757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

golem is recorded at frequency rank #44,479, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔ.lɛm\. goulet is at rank #33,278, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡu.lɛ\.

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 77757, this pair ranks #27,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of golem vs goulet

Shared letters: eglo. Private to "golem": m. Private to "goulet": tu.

"golem" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "goulet" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • golem ← ggolem · gloem · goelm · golemm · gollem · golme · oglem
  • goulet ← ggoulet · goluet · gouelt · goulett · goullet · goulte · guolet · ogulet

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "golem" and "goulet" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɡɔ.lɛm\ versus \ɡu.lɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "golem" or "goulet" show up more?
"goulet" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,278 in our French list, against #44,479 for "golem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "golem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "goulet" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #27,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "golem" and "goulet" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gobe vs golem". 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 #27,549 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