gnawing vs growing, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“gnawing” is an adjective and “growing” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,338
“gnawing” frequency rank: #1,223
“growing” frequency rank: 40561
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	gnawing	growing
Definition	severe or intense	present participle and gerund of grow

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set gnawing and growing apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch

gnawing

7 ch

growing

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gnawing is /ˈnɔː.ɪŋ/ while growing is /ˈɡɹoʊɪŋ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40561, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gnawing is recorded at frequency rank #39,338, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈnɔː.ɪŋ/. growing is at rank #1,223, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈɡɹoʊɪŋ/.

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 40561, this pair ranks #266,433 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gnawing vs growing

Shared letters: ginw. Private to "gnawing": a. Private to "growing": or.

"gnawing" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC · "growing" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

gnawing ← ganwing · ggnawing · gnaiwng · gnawign · gnawingg · gnawinng · gnawnig · gnawwing
growing ← ggrowing · gorwing · groiwng · growign · growingg · growinng · grownig · growwing

Frequency comparison

gnawing#39,338

growing#1,223

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gnawing" and "growing" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gnawing" is an adjective and "growing" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "gnawing" or "growing"?

"growing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,223 in our English list, against #39,338 for "gnawing". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering gnawing vs growing

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

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