Gorilla and Guerrilla Sound Alike and Mean Nothing Alike
A gorilla is the largest living primate. A guerrilla is an irregular fighter, and the two words come from opposite ends of the map.
The gorilla is the largest living primate, found in the forests of central Africa. Its near-homophone, *guerrilla*, is Spanish for a little war and has nothing to do with apes. Newspapers have been mixing them up for a century, which is how you get headlines about guerrilla enclosures at the zoo.
- A large African ape. *A silverback gorilla.*
- A large, intimidating person (informal). *Two gorillas on the door.*
- Gorilla in the room — an obvious problem nobody mentions. *The gorilla in the room is the cost.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | gorilla | A mountain gorilla. |
| Plural | gorillas | A family of gorillas. |
| Male | silverback | The silverback led. |
| Group | troop | A troop of gorillas. |
| Confused with | guerrilla | Guerrilla warfare. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Mountain gorillas live at high altitude in central Africa.One of two species.
- An adult silverback can weigh 200 kilograms.Silverback names the mature male.
- Guerrilla fighters held the hills.The other word entirely.
Great apes
- Gorilla — the largest, mostly ground-dwelling
- Chimpanzee — smaller, highly social, tool users
- Bonobo — a close relative of the chimpanzee
- Orangutan — Asian, largely solitary and arboreal
- Human — the fifth great ape, by every biological measure
From Greek *Gorillai*, the name in an ancient account of a voyage down the African coast for a tribe of hairy people. A nineteenth-century naturalist revived the word for the newly described ape.
Gorilla or guerrilla?
The ape is a gorilla. A guerrilla is an irregular soldier, from Spanish *guerra*, war. Guerrilla marketing follows the second.
What is a silverback?
A mature male gorilla, named for the grey saddle of hair on his back. He usually leads the group.