flyingvsthinkingWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“flying” and “thinking” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#23,936
“flying” frequency rank
#31,821
“thinking” frequency rank
55757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature flying thinking
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs fly Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs think

Letter map: flying vs thinking

Shared letters muted; letters that set flying and thinking apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. flying runs 6 letters (CCVVCC) against thinking's 8 (CCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
flying
8 ch
thinking

Corpus notes: flying and thinking

flying and thinking are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flying is recorded at frequency rank #23,936, classified as averb, pronounced […]. thinking is at rank #31,821, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 55757, this pair ranks #966,996 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of flying vs thinking

Shared letters: gin. Private to "flying": fly. Private to "thinking": hkt.

"flying" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC  ·  "thinking" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • flying ← fflying · fliyng · fllying · flyign · flyingg · flyinng · flynig · flyying
  • thinking ← htinking · thhinking · thikning · thinikng · thinkign · thinkingg · thinkinng · thinkking

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "flying" for "thinking" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "flying" or "thinking"?
"flying" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,936 in our German list, against #31,821 for "thinking". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "flying" and "thinking".

  • Full dictionary entry for "flying" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thinking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #966,996 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "flying" and "thinking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs thinking". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #966,996 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list