Which to use
“drilling” and “drooling” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,915
- “drilling” frequency rank
- #27,129
- “drooling” frequency rank
- 35044
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drilling | drooling |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The act or process of drilling. | Salivation. |
Where the eye mixes drilling and drooling
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between drilling and drooling
A purely visual mix-up. drilling (/ˈdɹɪlɪŋ/) and drooling (/ˈdɹuːlɪŋ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35044, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drilling is recorded at frequency rank #7,915, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɹɪlɪŋ/. drooling is at rank #27,129, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɹuːlɪŋ/.
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 35044, this pair ranks #315,381 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of drilling vs drooling
Shared letters: dgilnr. Private to "drilling": -. Private to "drooling": o.
"drilling" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC · "drooling" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "drilling" and "drooling" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "drilling" or "drooling" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "drilling" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drooling" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #315,381 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drilling" and "drooling" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drooling vs drooping". 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 #315,381 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.