Which to use
“cunning” is an adjective and “curling” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #15,999
- “cunning” frequency rank
- #14,731
- “curling” frequency rank
- 30730
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cunning | curling |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Sly; crafty; clever in surreptitious behaviour. | The action or motion of something that curls or is curled. |
Where the eye mixes cunning and curling
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. cunning and curling follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between cunning and curling
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cunning is /ˈkʌnɪŋ/ while curling is /ˈkəɹlɪŋ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30730, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cunning is recorded at frequency rank #15,999, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈkʌnɪŋ/. curling is at rank #14,731, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈkəɹlɪŋ/.
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 30730, this pair ranks #352,065 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of cunning vs curling
Shared letters: cginu. Private to "cunning": -. Private to "curling": lr.
"cunning" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "curling" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "cunning" for "curling" ever safe?
Which is more common, "cunning" or "curling"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "cunning" and "curling" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "cunning" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "curling" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #352,065 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cunning" and "curling" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coining vs cunning". 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 #352,065 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.