Which to use
“aggravating” is an adjective and “aggravation” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #24,647
- “aggravating” frequency rank
- #38,711
- “aggravation” frequency rank
- 63358
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | aggravating | aggravation |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | That makes something worse. | The act of aggravating, or making worse; used of evils, natural or moral; the act of increasing in severity or heinousness; something additional to a crime or wrong and enhancing its guilt or injurious consequences. |
Letter map: aggravating vs aggravation
Shared letters muted; letters that set aggravating and aggravation apart highlighted. Shared run: 10.
Part-of-speech tell for aggravating / aggravation
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: aggravating is anadjective and aggravationanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63358, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
aggravating is recorded at frequency rank #24,647, classified as anadj. aggravation is at rank #38,711, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˌæɡɹəˈveɪʃən/.
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 63358, this pair ranks #83,443 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of aggravating vs aggravation
Shared letters: aginrtv. Private to "aggravating": -. Private to "aggravation": o.
"aggravating" · 11 letters · shape VCCCVCVCVCC · "aggravation" · 11 letters · shape VCCCVCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- aggravating ← aggarvating · aggraavting · aggravaitng · aggravatign · aggravatingg · aggravatinng · aggravatnig · aggravatting
- aggravation ← aggarvation · aggraavtion · aggravaiton · aggravasion · aggravatino · aggravationn · aggravatoin · aggravattion
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "aggravating" for "aggravation" ever safe?
Frequency check: "aggravating" vs "aggravation" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pair "aggravating" vs "aggravation" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "aggravating" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "aggravation" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #83,443 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "aggravating" and "aggravation" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aggravation vs aggregation". 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 #83,443 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.