moldingvsmullingWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“molding” and “mulling” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#22,743
“molding” frequency rank
#44,354
“mulling” frequency rank
67097
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature molding mulling
Definition The act or process of shaping in or on a mold, or of making molds; the art or occupation of a molder. The act of one who mulls or thinks over something.

Letter map: molding vs mulling

Shared letters muted; letters that set molding and mulling apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. molding and mulling follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
molding
7 ch
mulling

Spelling & dictionary notes on molding vs mulling

molding and mulling are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67097, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

molding is recorded at frequency rank #22,743, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈməʊl.dɪŋ/. mulling is at rank #44,354, 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 67097, this pair ranks #64,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of molding vs mulling

Shared letters: gilmn. Private to "molding": do. Private to "mulling": u.

"molding" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "mulling" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • molding ← mloding · mmolding · modling · moldding · moldign · moldingg · moldinng · moldnig
  • mulling ← mluling · mmulling · mulilng · muling · mullign · mullingg · mullinng · mullnig

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "molding" for "mulling" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "molding" or "mulling" show up more?
"molding" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,743 in our English list, against #44,354 for "mulling". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "molding" and "mulling". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "molding" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mulling" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,956 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "molding" and "mulling" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mulling vs musing". 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 #64,956 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list