feelingvsfuelingWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: feeling is a adjective, fueling is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“feeling” is an adjective and “fueling” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#769
“feeling” frequency rank
#23,838
“fueling” frequency rank
24607
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature feeling fueling
Definition Emotionally sensitive. The act or process by which something is fueled.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set feeling and fueling apart are highlighted. They share 6 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch
feeling
7 ch
fueling

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: feeling is anadjective and fuelinganoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “feeling” becomes u in “fueling”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24607, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

feeling is recorded at frequency rank #769, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈfiː.lɪŋ/. fueling is at rank #23,838, 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 24607, this pair ranks #400,728 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of feeling vs fueling

Shared letters: efgiln. Private to "feeling": -. Private to "fueling": u.

"feeling" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC  ·  "fueling" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • feelingefeling · feeilng · feelign · feelingg · feelinng · feelling · feelnig · feleing
  • fuelingfeuling · ffueling · fueilng · fuelign · fuelingg · fuelinng · fuelnig · fuleing

Frequency comparison

feeling#769
fueling#23,838

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "feeling" and "fueling" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "feeling" is an adjective and "fueling" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "feeling" or "fueling"?
"feeling" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #769 in our English list, against #23,838 for "fueling". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering feeling vs fueling

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “feeling”; for a noun, it's “fueling”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “feeling” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list