pokingvsportingWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: poking is a verb, porting is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“poking” is a verb and “porting” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,997
“poking” frequency rank
#44,411
“porting” frequency rank
61408
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature poking porting
Definition present participle and gerund of poke An opening through or into which fluid or other material can flow.

Letter map: poking vs porting

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

6 ch
poking
7 ch
porting

Role in the sentence - poking and porting

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: poking is averb and portinganoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61408, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

poking is recorded at frequency rank #16,997, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈpəʊkɪŋ/. 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 61408, this pair ranks #94,448 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of poking vs porting

Shared letters: ginop. Private to "poking": k. Private to "porting": rt.

"poking" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "porting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pokingopking · pkoing · poikng · pokign · pokingg · pokinng · pokking · poknig
  • portingoprting · poritng · porrting · portign · portingg · portinng · portnig · portting

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "poking" and "porting" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "poking" is a verb and "porting" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "poking" vs "porting" - which ranks higher?
"poking" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,997 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "poking" 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 #94,448 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "poking" 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 #94,448 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