guidesvsguildeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,174
“guides” frequency rank
#12,791
“guilde” frequency rank
21965
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guides guilde
Definition Pluriel de guide. Au Moyen Âge en Europe, corporation de personnes, en général des artisans, des marchands ou des artistes, partageant et promouvant des intérêts communs.

Where the eye mixes guides and guilde

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
guides
6 ch
guilde

Why the eye confuses guides with guilde

A purely visual mix-up. guides (\ɡid\) and guilde (\ɡild\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21965, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guides is recorded at frequency rank #9,174, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡid\. guilde is at rank #12,791, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡild\.

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 21965, this pair ranks #360,496 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of guides vs guilde

Shared letters: degiu. Private to "guides": s. Private to "guilde": l.

"guides" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "guilde" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guidesgguides · giudes · gudies · guiddes · guidess · guidse · guieds · ugides
  • guildegguilde · giulde · guidle · guildde · guiled · guillde · gulide · ugilde

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "guides" and "guilde" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɡid\ versus \ɡild\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "guides" or "guilde"?
"guides" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,174 in our French list, against #12,791 for "guilde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "guides" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guilde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #360,496 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guides" and "guilde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gille vs guilde". 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 #360,496 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