Word Confusion: Gild vs Gilt vs Guilt

Plural for the noun: gilds
Gerund: gilding

Third person present verb: gilds

Past tense or past participle: gilded, gilt
Present participle: gilding

Plural for the noun: gilts

Plural for noun [slang]: guilts

Third person present verb: guilts

Past tense or past participle: guilted
Present participle: guilting

• A medieval association of craftsmen or merchants, often having considerable power
• An association of people for mutual aid or the pursuit of a common goal

Verb, transitive:
Cover thinly with or as if with gold ²

• To cover with gold leaf
• Give a specious or false brilliance to

To unnecessarily adorn something already beautiful

• To praise someone inordinately

To give a falsely attractive or valuable appearance to

[Archaic] To smear with blood

To make appear drunk

Noun:
Gold leaf or gold paint in a thin layer on a surface ¹

• Gilding

[Slang] Money

[Finance] A security issued by the Bank of England

A young sow at, or nearing, the first year of breeding ²

• A feeling of having done wrong or failed in an obligation

Conduct involving the commission of such crimes, wrongs, etc.

Verb, transitive:
[Informal; often followed by out or into] To cause to feel guilty

Make someone feel guilty, especially in order to induce them to do something

In the Middle Ages, craftsmen gathered together into gilds to protect their secrets.

Verb, transitive:
“To gild refined gold, to paint the lily; to throw perfume on the violet, . . . is wasteful, and ridiculous excess” (Shakespeare, vi. ii. 11).

They gild the facts until the truth all but vanishes.

In 1436, he gilded and painted statues for Bruges Town Hall.

She wore gilt-edged glasses.

It was a beautiful gilt brooch.

He’s guaranteeing it with gilt-edged bonds.

Noun:
“The king, cast in lead and covered in gold gilt, sat on a horse and wore a Roman toga and a crown of laurels” (Woodard).
It was a tiny vase covered with gilt.

“The gilt on the red ground of the holy picture-stand, and the gilt relief on the pictures, and the silver of the lusters and candlesticks, and the stones of the floor, and the rugs, and the banners above in the choir, and the steps of the altar, and the old blackened books, and the cassocks and surplices — all were flooded with light” (Tolstoy part 5, chapt 3).

He remembered with sudden guilt the letter from his mother that he had not yet read.

Did Johnny admit to his guilt?

I have such guilt about some of the things I did as a child.

Paul has lived a life of guilt.

Verb, transitive:
She totally guilted me out, dude.

He guilted me into picking up the tab.

Celeste had been guilted into going by her parents.

1. Late Old English and probably from the Middle Low German and the Middle Dutch gilde and is of Germanic origin.
2. Old English gyldan is of Germanic origin and related to gold.

1. Middle English is an archaic past participle of gild.
2. Middle English from the Old Norse gyltr.