gules

• gu. or g. (in heraldic contexts)

From Middle English goules, from Old French geule (“animal’s mouth, throat”) via Middle French geules. Compare with French gueules, Portuguese goelas and Spanish gules.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɡjuːlz/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɡjulz/
• Rhymes: -uːlz

gules (uncountable)

1. (heraldry) Red, e.g. on a coat of arms, typically represented in engraving by vertical parallel lines.

   gules:  

   • 1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 480:

     The official blazon of the arms of Perth is "Gules, a Holy Lambe passant regardant staff and cross argent, with the banner of St. Andrew proper, all within a double tressure counter-flowered of the second": […] .

• guly

gules

1. (heraldry) In blazon, of the colour red.

   The symbol of the Red Cross is a cross gules.

   • 1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ii 2:

     Now is he total gules, horridly tricked

   • 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts:

     You know they still
     Call themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate,
     And everything relating to a Bull
     Is popular and respectable in Thebes.
     Their arms are seven Bulls in a field gules;
     They think their strength consists in eating beef,—

gules

1. plural of gule

• Guels, glues, gusle, luges

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈɡu.ləs]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈɡu.les]

gules m (uncountable)

1. (heraldry) gules (colour)

Borrowed from French gueules.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡules/ [ˈɡu.les]
• Rhymes: -ules
• Syllabification: gu‧les

gules (invariable)

1. (heraldry) gules

gules m (plural gules)

1. (heraldry) gules

• “gules”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025