Which to use
“longing” is a verb and “looting” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,989
- “longing” frequency rank
- #15,856
- “looting” frequency rank
- 30845
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | longing | looting |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of long | The act of stealing during a crisis such as a war, riot or natural disaster, when law enforcement is ineffective or absent. |
Letter map: longing vs looting
Shared letters muted; letters that set longing and looting apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. longing (CVCCVCC) and looting (CVVCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Part-of-speech tell for longing / looting
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: longing is averb and lootinganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30845, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
longing is recorded at frequency rank #14,989, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈlɒŋɪŋ/. looting is at rank #15,856, 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 30845, this pair ranks #351,130 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of longing vs looting
Shared letters: gilno. Private to "longing": -. Private to "looting": t.
"longing" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "looting" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "longing" for "looting" ever safe?
Frequency check: "longing" vs "looting" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "longing" and "looting". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "longing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "looting" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #351,130 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "longing" and "looting" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "looting vs loring". 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 #351,130 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.