Which to use
“fooling” is a verb and “forking” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #19,339
- “fooling” frequency rank
- #49,339
- “forking” frequency rank
- 68678
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fooling | forking |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of fool | division into forks |
Letter map: fooling vs forking
Shared letters muted; letters that set fooling and forking apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for fooling / forking
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fooling is averb and forkinganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68678, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fooling is recorded at frequency rank #19,339, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈfuːlɪŋ/. forking is at rank #49,339, 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 68678, this pair ranks #57,804 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of fooling vs forking
Shared letters: fgino. Private to "fooling": l. Private to "forking": kr.
"fooling" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC · "forking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fooling" for "forking" ever safe?
Frequency check: "fooling" vs "forking" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "fooling" and "forking". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "fooling" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "forking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #57,804 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fooling" and "forking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faring vs forking". 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 #57,804 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.