commentingvscompetingTell them apart

Quick tell: commenting is a noun, competing is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“commenting” is a noun and “competing” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,151
“commenting” frequency rank
#4,931
“competing” frequency rank
14082
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature commenting competing
Definition The making of a comment; commentary. Being in the state of competition (often unintentionally).

Letter map: commenting vs competing

Shared letters muted; letters that set commenting and competing apart highlighted. Shared run: 8.

10 ch
commenting
9 ch
competing

Grammar separator: commenting vs competing

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: commenting is anoun and competinganadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14082, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

commenting is recorded at frequency rank #9,151, classified as anoun. competing is at rank #4,931, tagged as anadj, pronounced /kəmˈpiːtɪŋ/.

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 14082, this pair ranks #472,153 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of commenting vs competing

Shared letters: cegimnot. Private to "commenting": -. Private to "competing": p.

"commenting" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCC  ·  "competing" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • commentingccommenting · cmomenting · comemnting · comenting · commenitng · commennting · commentign · commentingg
  • competingccompeting · cmopeting · comepting · commpeting · compeitng · competign · competingg · competinng

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "commenting" and "competing" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "commenting" is a noun and "competing" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "commenting" or "competing" show up more?
"competing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,931 in our English list, against #9,151 for "commenting". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "commenting" vs "competing" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "commenting" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "competing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #472,153 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "commenting" and "competing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "commentating vs commenting". 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 #472,153 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