postingvspushingConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#3,714
“posting” frequency rank
#3,387
“pushing” frequency rank
7101
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature posting pushing
Definition present participle and gerund of post present participle and gerund of push

Where the eye mixes posting and pushing

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
posting
7 ch
pushing

Visual trap between posting and pushing

A purely visual mix-up. posting (/ˈpəʊstɪŋ/) and pushing (/ˈpʊʃɪŋ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7101, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

posting is recorded at frequency rank #3,714, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈpəʊstɪŋ/. pushing is at rank #3,387, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈpʊʃɪŋ/.

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 7101, this pair ranks #508,553 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of posting vs pushing

Shared letters: ginps. Private to "posting": ot. Private to "pushing": hu.

"posting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "pushing" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • postingopsting · positng · possting · postign · postingg · postinng · postnig · postting
  • pushingppushing · psuhing · puhsing · pushhing · pushign · pushingg · pushinng · pushnig

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "posting" for "pushing" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (/ˈpəʊstɪŋ/ versus /ˈpʊʃɪŋ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "posting" or "pushing" show up more?
"pushing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,387 in our English list, against #3,714 for "posting". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "posting" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pushing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #508,553 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "posting" and "pushing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "porting vs posting". 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 #508,553 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