Which to use
“building” and “buildings” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #510
- “building” frequency rank
- #2,066
- “buildings” frequency rank
- 2576
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | building | buildings |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The act or process by which something is built; construction. | plural of building |
Where the eye mixes building and buildings
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. building (/ˈbɪl.dɪŋ/) and buildings (/ˈbɪldɪŋz/) 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 extra letter(s) - “building” sits inside “buildings”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2576, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
building is recorded at frequency rank #510, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɪl.dɪŋ/. buildings is at rank #2,066, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈbɪldɪŋz/.
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 2576, this pair ranks #524,623 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of building vs buildings
Shared letters: bdgilnu. Private to "building": -. Private to "buildings": s.
"building" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC · "buildings" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCCC