dartingvsdepartingConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#42,592
“darting” frequency rank
#13,697
“departing” frequency rank
56289
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature darting departing
Definition Characterized by sudden, quick movements. That is leaving.

Letter map: darting vs departing

Shared letters muted; letters that set darting and departing apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. darting runs 7 letters (CVCCVCC) against departing's 9 (CVCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
darting
9 ch
departing

Corpus notes: darting and departing

darting and departing are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56289, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

darting is recorded at frequency rank #42,592, classified as anadj. departing is at rank #13,697, tagged as anadj.

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 56289, this pair ranks #127,343 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of darting vs departing

Shared letters: adginrt. Private to "darting": -. Private to "departing": ep.

"darting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "departing" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • darting ← adrting · daritng · darrting · dartign · dartingg · dartinng · dartnig · dartting
  • departing ← ddeparting · deaprting · deparitng · deparrting · departign · departingg · departinng · departnig

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "darting" and "departing" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "darting" vs "departing" - which ranks higher?
"departing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,697 in our English list, against #42,592 for "darting". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "darting" and "departing". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "darting" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "departing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #127,343 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "darting" and "departing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Darrin vs darting". 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 #127,343 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