Guild

How to spell guild

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce guild

What does guild mean?

1. nounAn organised association of craftspeople, merchants, or professionals formed to set standards and protect shared interests.

Guild in a sentence

• The medieval weavers' guild controlled who could practise the trade in the city.

• She joined the writers' guild to gain access to legal advice and contract templates.

Where does guild come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Guild comes from a Germanic root meaning 'to pay' or 'to contribute', closely tied to the Old English noun gild and the Old Norse gildi, both of which referred to a payment, a tribute, or a fee. The link to money is important: early guilds were associations whose members paid dues into a common fund, so the name described what bound the group together financially before it described the group itself. By the medieval period the word had come to mean an organised society of merchants or craftsmen who controlled a trade, set standards, and protected their members. The spelling kept the silent 'u' after the 'g' to preserve the hard /g/ sound, a French-influenced convention that also explains 'guard' and 'guest'. That silent 'u' is precisely what separates guild from its homophone 'gild', meaning to coat with gold, even though the two words sound identical.

How the word is built

• guild (from Old English/Old Norse gild: payment, contribution, association)