pittingvsportingTell them apart

Which to use

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

#29,038
“pitting” frequency rank
#44,411
“porting” frequency rank
73449
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pitting porting
Definition The formation of pits on a surface because of corrosion. An opening through or into which fluid or other material can flow.

Letter map: pitting vs porting

Shared letters muted; letters that set pitting and porting apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
pitting
7 ch
porting

Corpus notes: pitting and porting

pitting and porting 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 73449, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pitting is recorded at frequency rank #29,038, classified as anoun. porting is at rank #44,411, 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 73449, this pair ranks #39,586 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pitting vs porting

Shared letters: ginpt. Private to "pitting": -. Private to "porting": or.

"pitting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "porting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pittingiptting · piting · pititng · pittign · pittingg · pittinng · pittnig · ppitting
  • portingoprting · poritng · porrting · portign · portingg · portinng · portnig · portting

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pitting" and "porting" be used interchangeably?
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.
Frequency check: "pitting" vs "porting" - which ranks higher?
"pitting" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,038 in our English list, against #44,411 for "porting". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "pitting" and "porting". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pitting" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "porting" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,586 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pitting" and "porting" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "porting vs punting". 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 #39,586 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