Which to use
“coughing” is a noun and “crushing” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #15,789
- “coughing” frequency rank
- #9,157
- “crushing” frequency rank
- 24946
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | coughing | crushing |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A cough; the act of coughing. | present participle and gerund of crush |
Letter map: coughing vs crushing
Shared letters muted; letters that set coughing and crushing apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. coughing (CVVCCVCC) and crushing (CCVCCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Part-of-speech tell for coughing / crushing
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: coughing is anoun and crushingaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24946, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
coughing is recorded at frequency rank #15,789, classified as anoun. crushing is at rank #9,157, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈkɹʌ.ʃɪŋ/.
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 24946, this pair ranks #398,089 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of coughing vs crushing
Shared letters: cghinu. Private to "coughing": o. Private to "crushing": rs.
"coughing" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC · "crushing" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "coughing" for "crushing" ever safe?
Which is more common, "coughing" or "crushing"?
Useful next steps
Pair "coughing" vs "crushing" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "coughing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "crushing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #398,089 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "coughing" and "crushing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coughing vs coursing". 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 #398,089 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.