Do you know the difference between guaranty and guarantee?
Guaranty can act as a transitive verb. (See definition #2, and notice the past tense.)
Guarantee is a noun.
You learn something new everyday.
Do you know any other word pairs that are like this one?
The topic tags are sometimes edited, so I will list mine here: words, nouns, verbs, I’m an editor. Thank you.
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15 Answers
I like Raise and Raze. One builds up, one tears down.
@Hawaii_Jake I guarantee you you’re up on your yore about guaranty.
I did not know that guaranty was a word. I did a Web search. According to this article, in most modern usage guarantee is used as both noun and verb.
Not quite what you are asking for, but I find the following associations interesting:
The word lay is a transitive verb and also the past tense of the intransitive verb lie.
The word lead is a noun when pronounced one way and a verb when pronounced another way. The past tense of the verb, led, is pronounced the same as the noun.
I have never seen “guaranty” before. I’ve always seen it as “guarantee”. I wonder if it’s a regional thing to see it one way over the other.
I can’t think of any other pairs like this tight now, but I’ll be back as soon as I do.
Is “gauranty” optional? I’ve never seen it before…it looks like guh-RAN-ti
Emigrate and immigrate always get me. I don’t have as much of a problem with effects and affects, though.
As a side question, is it “lay of the land” or “lie of the land” or are both all right?
@janbb I always thought that only “lay of the land” was right but according to the Oxford English dictionary, both lay and lie can be defined as a noun meaning the appearance, way or direction in which something lies, suggesting that both are correct.
reign / rein
“Free rein” is the expression when the meaning is “to let someone have his way” as you would let a horse find its own way by giving it “free rein”.
“Reign” is what a king does. Or Obama, and there’s nothing “free” about it.
Might (large and powerful) / Mite (a small and weak thing).
That reminds me of a saying I learned to tell the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. Mites grow up and tights fall down.
@downtide that’s very good, very good, I think I can remember that.
@downtide , The way I was taught to remember the difference is that c stands for ceiling and g stands for ground.
“Guaranty” means “something given by someone to another person as a security.”
“Guarantee” means “an assurance given by one party to another for fulfilling a condition.”
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