Which to use
“hearing” is an adjective and “hemming” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,602
- “hearing” frequency rank
- #48,277
- “hemming” frequency rank
- 49879
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hearing | hemming |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Able to hear, as opposed to deaf. | The act of saying "hem", in intermission or hesitation of speech. |
Letter map: hearing vs hemming
Shared letters muted; letters that set hearing and hemming apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for hearing / hemming
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hearing is anadjective and hemminganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49879, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hearing is recorded at frequency rank #1,602, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈhɪə.ɹɪŋ/. hemming is at rank #48,277, 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 49879, this pair ranks #179,432 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of hearing vs hemming
Shared letters: eghin. Private to "hearing": ar. Private to "hemming": m.
"hearing" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC · "hemming" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hearing" for "hemming" ever safe?
Which is more common, "hearing" or "hemming"?
What to do next
You've compared "hearing" and "hemming". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "hearing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hemming" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #179,432 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hearing" and "hemming" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heaping vs hemming". 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 #179,432 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.