# penning vs petting

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### penning
*verb · IPA /ˈpɛnɪŋ/ · frequency rank #39,952*
present participle and gerund of pen

### petting
*verb · IPA /ˈpɛtɪŋ/ · frequency rank #27,244*
present participle and gerund of pet

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-09-03.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/penning-vs-petting