Which to use
“petting” is a verb and “pitting” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,244
- “petting” frequency rank
- #29,038
- “pitting” frequency rank
- 56282
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | petting | pitting |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of pet | The formation of pits on a surface because of corrosion. |
Letter map: petting vs pitting
Shared letters muted; letters that set petting and pitting apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for petting / pitting
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: petting is averb and pittinganoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “petting” becomes i in “pitting”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56282, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
petting is recorded at frequency rank #27,244, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈpɛtɪŋ/. pitting is at rank #29,038, 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 56282, this pair ranks #127,378 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of petting vs pitting
Shared letters: ginpt. Private to "petting": e. Private to "pitting": -.
"petting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "pitting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "petting" for "pitting" ever safe?
Which is more common, "petting" or "pitting"?
After this comparison
Pair "petting" vs "pitting" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "petting" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "pitting" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #127,378 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "petting" and "pitting" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pinging vs pitting". 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 #127,378 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.