bowingvsbringTell them apart

Which to use

“bowing” and “bring” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#23,763
“bowing” frequency rank
#537
“bring” frequency rank
24300
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bowing bring
Definition present participle and gerund of bow (all senses) To transport toward somebody/somewhere.

Where the eye mixes bowing and bring

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
bowing
5 ch
bring

Visual trap between bowing and bring

A purely visual mix-up. bowing (/ˈbaʊɪŋ/) and bring (/ˈbɹɪŋ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24300, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bowing is recorded at frequency rank #23,763, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈbaʊɪŋ/. bring is at rank #537, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈbɹɪŋ/.

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 24300, this pair ranks #402,990 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of bowing vs bring

Shared letters: bgin. Private to "bowing": ow. Private to "bring": r.

"bowing" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "bring" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bowingbbowing · boiwng · bowign · bowingg · bowinng · bownig · bowwing · bwoing
  • bringbbring · birng · brign · bringg · brinng · brnig · brring · rbing

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bowing" and "bring" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈbaʊɪŋ/ versus /ˈbɹɪŋ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "bowing" or "bring"?
"bring" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #537 in our English list, against #23,763 for "bowing". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "bowing" and "bring" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bowing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bring" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #402,990 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bowing" and "bring" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "boing vs bowing". 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 #402,990 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list