Which to use
“desiring” is a verb and “devising” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #32,349
- “desiring” frequency rank
- #34,018
- “devising” frequency rank
- 66367
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | desiring | devising |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of desire | the act of creating a plan or some object, especially a will |
Letter map: desiring vs devising
Shared letters muted; letters that set desiring and devising apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for desiring / devising
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: desiring is averb and devisinganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66367, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
desiring is recorded at frequency rank #32,349, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪˈzaɪ(ə)ɹɪŋ/. devising is at rank #34,018, tagged as anoun.
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 66367, this pair ranks #68,335 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of desiring vs devising
Shared letters: degins. Private to "desiring": r. Private to "devising": v.
"desiring" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC · "devising" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "desiring" and "devising" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "desiring" or "devising"?
Useful next steps
You've compared "desiring" and "devising". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "desiring" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "devising" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #68,335 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "desiring" and "devising" 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 #68,335 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.