Which to use
“designing” is an adjective and “desiring” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #8,409
- “designing” frequency rank
- #32,349
- “desiring” frequency rank
- 40758
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | designing | desiring |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | artful; scheming | present participle and gerund of desire |
Letter map: designing vs desiring
Shared letters muted; letters that set designing and desiring apart highlighted. Shared run: 7.
Grammar separator: designing vs desiring
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: designing is anadjective and desiringaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40758, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
designing is recorded at frequency rank #8,409, classified as anadj. desiring is at rank #32,349, tagged as averb, pronounced /dɪˈzaɪ(ə)ɹɪŋ/.
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 40758, this pair ranks #264,647 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of designing vs desiring
Shared letters: degins. Private to "designing": -. Private to "desiring": r.
"designing" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCC · "desiring" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "designing" and "desiring" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "designing" or "desiring" show up more?
What to do next
You've compared "designing" and "desiring". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "designing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "desiring" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #264,647 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "designing" and "desiring" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "desiring vs despairing". 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 #264,647 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.