# petting vs pouting

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

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

### pouting
*verb · IPA /ˈpaʊtɪŋ/ · frequency rank #41,816*
present participle and gerund of pout

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/petting-vs-pouting