Which to use
“licking” is a noun and “linking” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,784
- “licking” frequency rank
- #7,578
- “linking” frequency rank
- 22362
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | licking | linking |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The act by which something is licked. | Serving to connect other things together. |
Where the eye mixes licking and linking
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. licking and linking follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between licking and linking
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: licking is /ˈlɪkɪŋ/ while linking is /ˈlɪŋkɪŋ/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - c in “licking” becomes n in “linking”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22362, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
licking is recorded at frequency rank #14,784, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈlɪkɪŋ/. linking is at rank #7,578, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈlɪŋkɪŋ/.
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 22362, this pair ranks #417,152 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of licking vs linking
Shared letters: gikln. Private to "licking": c. Private to "linking": -.
"licking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "linking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "licking" and "linking" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "licking" or "linking" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "licking" and "linking" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "licking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "linking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #417,152 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "licking" and "linking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lacing vs licking". 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 #417,152 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.