Which to use
“falling” is a verb and “felling” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,203
- “falling” frequency rank
- #38,837
- “felling” frequency rank
- 41040
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | falling | felling |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of fall | The act by which something is felled. |
Letter map: falling vs felling
Shared letters muted; letters that set falling and felling apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Role in the sentence - falling and felling
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: falling is averb and fellinganoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - a in “falling” becomes e in “felling”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41040, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
falling is recorded at frequency rank #2,203, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈfɔːlɪŋ/. felling is at rank #38,837, 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 41040, this pair ranks #262,056 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of falling vs felling
Shared letters: fgiln. Private to "falling": a. Private to "felling": e.
"falling" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "felling" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "falling" for "felling" ever safe?
Frequency check: "falling" vs "felling" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
You've compared "falling" and "felling". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "falling" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "felling" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #262,056 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "falling" and "felling" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "felling vs Fuelling". 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 #262,056 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.